Darkening Skies 283 



As feeble tribes survive in deserts and jungles, 

 so the winter moths and their kindred find a refuge 

 in the nights of late autumn and winter from the 

 perils of the more active seasons. If they flew 

 in summer, the fluttering males would be an easy 

 prey for bats ; but bats in winter hunt rarely, and 

 only by daylight. The nightjar, which feeds on 

 moths by night, is far away ; and the foes of the 

 winter moths are reduced to such field-mice as 

 still wander in the milder nights, and to a few moles 

 prowling above the surface. These animals no 

 doubt eat the creeping females when they can find 

 them ; but once they climb their tree the winter 

 moths are safe from wild enemies. Nature, as 

 often, has been less careful of the males ; and it 

 is no uncommon sight to see the feeble wings of 

 the winter moths outspread on a roadside puddle, 

 or the fresh tar coating a telegraph pole, where 

 the wind bore them on a December or January 

 night. After a week of south-west winds and rain 

 there is sometimes a little drift of dead winter moths 

 washed up on the leeward strand of ponds. This 

 frail and delicate group of moths appears peculiarly 

 unfitted to cope with the frosts and storms of winter, 

 which are shunned by the stout and powerful 

 insects which beat about our summer lights. Like 

 phantoms of nature's sleep, they flutter from the 

 winter loam, simulacra of forms to be. 



