i 7 6 JULY 



lime trees flood-lighted on the evening of a flower show. 

 High up, near the peak of the trees, a company of great 

 moths careered in the white light, looking yet whiter 

 than it, as if they were the solid crystals deposited by the 

 light itself. It was not possible to detect their species. 

 Any colour, other than all colours, was indecipherable. 

 If their identity is to be traced, some balloon-like thing 

 becomes a necessity, unless we are to copy the habit of 

 insect collectors in tropical forests, who shoot the tower 

 ing butterflies with dust-shot. Did not an entomologist 

 recently report the killing of a great butterfly and a great 

 snake with the right and left barrels of his shot-gun ? 



The new apparatus will doubtless help to increase our 

 knowledge where it is weakest ; but the part it will play 

 has been filled, -not always inadequately, by the bats. 

 Every morning one summer for a period of not less than 

 a month, I found that a certain motor-car, housed in a 

 rather high and roomy shed, was littered with wings and 

 other disjecta membra of moths or butterflies ; and one 

 or two sorts prevailed. On inquiry I found that litter 

 of similar, indeed, so far as I could tell, of identical, sort 

 had been pulling the rector of two churches. Each 

 morning the floor and seats of the churches had been 

 dotted with broken wings. All these were the crumbs 

 of the meals of bats, who are equally fond of barns and 

 churches. Incidentally the most famous haunt of bats, 

 excelling especially in the number of species, is said to 

 be Wells Cathedral. Not once or twice insect hunters 

 have discovered on the ground wings of moths that, in 

 spite of close hunting for years, they thought very rare, 

 if existent, in the neighbourhood. Like the Purple 

 Emperor butterfly, which has a royal fancy for the heights, 

 there are moths that aspire. The cc desire of the moth 

 for the star &quot; is a hyperbole of Shelley s ; but there are 



