EVENING AND NIGHT FLIERS. 303 



utmost degree of height or perfection. We may pronounce 

 it very grand, or very good ; but there is little more to be said 

 about it. 



Much, then, as it is with a man on the pinnacle of a laborious 

 ascent, it is with a moth in the completed stage of its existence. 

 In the caterpillar's state of labour and progression (that in 

 which we have already briefly viewed him), whole volumes 

 have been written, and others may be yet to write, concerning 

 his destructiveness, his ingenuity, his perseverance ; but when, 

 after an interval of rest and concealment, he re-appears in a 

 winged form, his other characteristics seem, as it were, lost 

 in his exterior perfection. We look and admire, but have 

 little, comparatively, to record about him. 



Various, as we have seen, are the resources curiously con- 

 trasted the instincts, of different species of moth caterpillars ; 

 but the history of one moth is pretty nearly the history of all 

 especially with the tribes which fly by night ; their proceed- 

 ings being on that account involved, of course, in additional 

 obscurity. The chief diversity of these insects, in their perfect 

 state, belongs then mostly to their outward form and colouring ; 

 and in these is to be found a variety, endless and admirable. 



Moths have been arranged under two general divisions : 

 crepuscular, or those that are seen on wing at twilight ; and 

 nocturnal, or night-fliers ; the latter comprising by far the 

 largest number. The twilight family consists chiefly of hawk- 

 moths or sphinxes / the former appellative being founded on 



