30 NATURAL HISTORY. 



painted flowers, evidently mistaking them for real. A large number are provided with organs fitted 

 for producing a sound, though it is inaudible to our ears in most cases, although the Death's Head 

 Hawk Moth, and several allied species, are capable of uttering a very audible squeak. The males of 

 those Moths which have highly-developed pectinated antennae will gather round a box which contains 

 a virgin female, and it is believed that they can be thus attracted from a distance of a mile or more. 

 The males of various species are also provided with tufts of hair, which emit a distinct odour. These 

 are sometimes placed between the wings, and sometimes on the antennae, legs, or abdomen. This is 

 specially noticeable in the British Privet and Convolvulus Hawk Moths (Sphinx ligustri and 

 convolvuli), the males of which emit a musky scent. In these cases the odour is believed to be 

 attractive rather than protective but some of the insects which are refused by birds appear really to 

 owe their immunity to their disagreeable smell or taste, and sometimes the same insect emits two 

 distinct odours from different parts of its body one protective, and the other, perhaps, attractive. 



Insects so voracious as caterpillars frequently commit great havoc in our fields and gardens. 

 Perhaps the most formidable of all are those called " Cut-worms " in America, which live beneath the 

 surface of the ground, and eat through the roots of plants which come in their way. Most of these 

 develop into dark-coloured Moths, belonging to the genus Agrotis. As a set-off against the mischief 

 caused by Butterflies and Moths, we have the valuable product called silk ; and in some parts of 

 Australia cakes formed of a particular species of Agrotis form a staple food of the inhabitants. We 

 do not eat insects in Europe, but may derive much pleasure from studying their structure and habits, 

 and from admiring their beauty. 



Butterflies and Moths are found in all parts of the world, and are exceedingly numerous in species. 

 There are about 2,000 different kinds in the British Islands, out of which only sixty-five are Butter- 

 flies and the remainder are Moths. Islands are always poorer in species than continents ; and if we take 

 Europe into consideration, we find 5,000 species of Moths, and nearly 300 of Butterflies on the lists. 

 Iceland alone is said to produce no Butterflies, but only a few Moths, but both Butterflies and Moths 

 (though not more than about a dozen different kinds) have been met with in the polar regions, as far 

 north as our explorers have yet penetrated. Insects are far more numerous in the warmer parts of 

 the world, abounding most where the vegetation is most luxuriant and varied. About 10,000 species 

 of Butterflies and 40,000 of Moths have been described at present, and hundreds of new species are 

 added to our lists every year. Butterflies are particularly numerous in tropical America, and more than 

 half of all the species known inhabit this part of the world. Upwards of two thousand different kinds 

 have been collected in the valley of the Amazon alone, but a great number of these are small and incon- 

 spicuous species, and it is the aggregate and not the comparative number of lai-ge and brilliant 

 species which makes us consider size and colour as so characteristic of the Butterflies of the Tropics. If 

 we compare two species belonging to corresponding groups, one of which is found in Europe or Japan, 

 and the other in India, we shall generally find that the Indian insect is the smaller. Nor does the 

 abundance of species depend on heat alone, but rather on the variety of the vegetation, and therefore 

 Butterflies and Moths are far more numerous in Switzerland, where the variety of elevation gives rise 

 to a greater variety of vegetation, than in the peninsulas of Spain or Italy. Andalusia, with its sub- 

 tropical climate and vegetation, hardly produces more Butterflies than Sweden. Many of those which 

 occur on the plains in Lapland are met with in the Alps in Switzerland ; and many common Central 

 European Butterflies are mountain insects in Andalusia, and the number of species peculiar to the 

 extreme South of Europe is comparatively small, and by no means compensates for the almost total 

 disappearance of the numerous Alpine species of Central Europe. The opposite coast of North Africa 

 is even poorer in species than Southern Spain. 



Before closing this chapter, some of our readers may wish for a few hints in regard to forming a 

 collection of Butterflies and Moths. It is easy to make a beginning, and the utensils required are 

 neither numerous nor expensive a net, pins, setting-boards, and boxes being everything which is 

 required in the first instance. 



The most convenient kind of net is, perhaps, the ring-net. This consists of a net of green gauze, 

 attached to a ring fixed on the end of a stick. The net should be gradually tapering, but rounded at 

 the end, so as to contain no corners, and should be about three times as long as the width of the ring. 

 It should not be sewn directly on the ring, but attached to a strip of some stouter substance at the 



