CLEAR-WINGED MOTHS. 321 



a place of shelter to which she often resorts from the bleak 

 winds of March, or the early frosts of late October ; for our 

 little " Twenty Plume," fragile as she looks, is no mere bird 

 of summer. 



Having made allusion to certain moths wherein are altoge- 

 ther wanting those merely ornamental appendages, the colour- 

 ed scales or feathers which usually clothe the wings of their 

 tribe, we must say a little more about them ; though that little 

 will here be somewhat out of place, inasmuch as the few 

 11 clear-winged " belong more nearly, by habits and other affin- 

 ities, to the Hawk and Twilight Moths first discoursed of, 

 than to the nocturnal division from which our subjects have 

 been subsequently drawn. 



Towards the end of May there may be seen, sipping honey 

 on the wing, (chiefly, however, in the woods and gardens of 

 Surrey, Kent, and Essex), an insect with a short, robust, yel- 

 lowish-olive body, not very dissimilar to that of a drone bee, 

 except that it is distinguished by some terminating rings of 

 deep red, finished at the extremity by a black and yellow tuft. 

 From its clear, transparent, brown-bordered wings, none but 

 the " initiate " would take it for other than a curious sort of 

 fly or bee, whereas it is in fact the " Bee Hawk-moth,"* one of 

 those above alluded to. Of another family, f but resembling 

 the last in naked transparency of pinion, there is the " Bee 

 Ckar-wing" which, in the heat of noonday, is accustomed to 



* Sesiafusiformis. t That of JEgeridce. 



