162 SPECIES TAKEN NEAR BELFAST. 



darting along ■udth great power and rapidity, or 

 hovering over the flowers, from which they draw their 

 nutriment. The flexible tube which they insert 

 among the blossoms for this purpose, is sometimes of 

 considerable length. In a specimen of Sphinx con- 

 volvuli taken at Londonderry, and brought to me 

 alive by the guard of her Majesty's mail, it is nearly 

 three inches long. When not in use, this " tongue," 

 to use the popular name, is curled up like the cor- 

 responding organ in butterflies. The only sphinxes 

 yet taken in this neighbourhood, are the following, 

 and many of them are of rare occurrence : — Anthro- 

 cera Filipendulce, the six-spotted bumet ; Smerinthus 

 ocellatus, the eyed hawk-moth ; Smerinthus populi, 

 the poplar hawk-moth ; Sphinx convolvuU, the con- 

 volvulus hawk-moth ; Deilephila Elpenor, the ele- 

 phant hawk-moth ; Macroglossa stellatarum, the 

 humming-bird moth ; Sesia bombyliformis, the 

 narrow-bordered bee-moth ; Trochilium crabroni- 

 formis, the lunar hornet. 



I may add to this list the most remarkable of 

 them all — the death's-head sphinx {Acherontia Atro- 

 pos). It is also the largest, for its wings, when ex- 

 panded, measure four inches and three-quarters 

 across. The insect is named from the peculiar mark- 

 ings on its thorax ; and as it possesses the power of 

 uttering a shriU and plaintive cry, it has from these 



