THE DEATH'S-HEAD MOTH. 131 



correspondent phantoms sheeted corpse and shrouded skel- 

 eton start into lifeless motion before the glaring eye. Such, 

 as seen and heard through the magnifying haze of ignorance and 

 twilight, or heard only in the dead stillness of the midnight 

 hour, are the death's-head moth and the death-watch beetle. 



Let us now inspect them in a calmer and clearer manner. 



First, for the Death's-head the Sphinx or Acherontia Atro- 

 pos of the entomologist. And here, in the largest of British 

 moths, we have a beautiful insect of richly variegated plumage, 

 bird-like in magnitude the "wandering bird" of Poland. 



In the upper wings, which, when expanded, cover an extent 

 of nearly five inches, the prevailing hues are very dark, but 

 elegantly disposed in waves and shades of brown and black, 

 broken by a few lighter clouds, and one small white spot near 

 the centre. The secondary pinions, of less sombre colouring, 

 are of a deep ochreous yellow, barred with black ; a livery in 

 which the massive body is also attired. The head and thorax 

 are dark, and it is on the back of the latter that the insect 

 bears its dreaded badge, the death's head, to which it owes its 

 name, figured in yellowish gray upon a sable ground.* 



The power possessed by the death's-head of emitting sound 

 (a gift rarely, if at all in any other instance, bestowed upon its 

 race) gives to this singular moth another fancifully imputed 

 attribute of the supernatural ; and the character of its voice, 

 if voice it may be cajled, loud, shrill, and wailing, invests 



* See Frontispiece to Vol. II. 





