194 EVENINGS AT THE MICROSCOPE 



beating about the panes a few minutes, found their way 

 in, and made straightway for the basket, totally regard- 

 less of their own liberty. 



It must be manifest to you that some extraordinary 

 sense is bestowed upon these moths, or else some ordinary 

 and well-known sense in extraordinary development. It 

 may be smell; it may be hearing; but neither odor nor 

 sound, perceptible by our dull faculties, is given forth by 

 the females; the emanation is far too subtile to produce 

 any vibrations on our sensorium, and yet sufficiently po- 

 tent, and widely diffused, to call these males from their 

 distant retreats in the hedges and woods. I think it highly 

 probable that the great increase of surface given to the 

 antennae by the plumose ramification we have been ob- 

 serving, is connected with the faculty: perhaps every 

 bristle of the spiral whorls is a perceptive organ, con- 

 structed to vibrate with the tender undulations that circle 

 far and wide from the new-born female. Surely the ways 

 of Grod in creation, as well as in moral government, are 

 1 'past finding out!" 



The male Grnat presents in its antennas a pair of plumes 

 of equal beauty, but of a totally different character. The 

 pattern here is one of exceeding lightness and grace, as 

 you may see in this specimen. Each antenna is essentially 

 a very slender cylindrical stem of many joints (about four- 

 teen); at each joint springs out a whorl of fine hairs of 

 great length and delicacy, which radiate in various direc- 

 tions (not, however, forming a complete circle), curving 

 upward like the outline of a saucer, supposing the stem 

 to be inserted into its centre. The length of these hairs 

 is so great that the diameter of their sweep equals, if it 

 does not exceed, the whole length of the antenna. 



