492 

 Art. LX. — Colloquia Ento7nologica. 



(This contribution is not by the autlior of the former series.) 



Scene — An open space in a Beech-wood^ Gloucestershire. 

 Entomologus and Tyro seated on the ground. 



Tyro. See, Macroglossa stellatarum ! — I knocked him 

 down with my hat as he was banqueting on the sweets of a 



honey-suckle 



Ent. — thrusting his long tongue into the flowers ; and, if 

 alarmed, darting off like an arrow. 



Tyro. Yes ; directly he caught sight of me, he whisked 

 away: and I should have taken him for one of those moths 

 that wear their good-looking name in the shape of a Greek 

 letter embroidered on their cloak, which we so often see flying 

 about flowers in the sunshine. 

 Ent. Plusia gamma. 



Tyro. Probably. But my quarry quickly returned to his 

 feast ; and, as I took care to stand perfectly still, he seemed 

 to be better reconciled to me, and 1 had time to take more 

 notice of him, as he quaffed cup after cup of the delicious 

 nectar; — I soon saw what he was, and quickly pounced on 

 him. 



Ent. They are by no means common. I have a large 

 plant of Centranthus latifoUus, which they regularly frequent 

 every year : two or three sometimes humming (for the motion 

 of their wings makes a melodious, though not loud hum — as 

 I dare say you observed) about it; at once inserting their 

 elongate maxilltje into its little upright tubular corollas ; and, 

 as they fly with their body nearly parallel to the ground, they 

 are obliged to bend them to get to the bottom of the flowers ;— 

 and I notice, they do not describe a curve, as one would sup- 

 pose would be the case with so flexile an instrument, but are 

 bent quite at an angle. 



Tyro. I think I noticed something of the sort just now 

 in some butterflies which were flitting about a bed of thistles 

 on the edge of the wood. I watched them, as they alighted on 

 a head, turn completely round ; and, after examining it on all 



