THE LIFE-HISTORY OF THE LIME HAWK-MOTH. 
Illustrated with Photographs taken from life by FRED ENocK, F.L.S., ete. 
HERE is no doubt that to most entomologists the prime favourites among the 
British Lepidoptera are the “Hawk” Moths (‘‘Sphinges”). Apart from being of 
large size, their elegant and well-proportioned wings, their long tongues and huge eyes, 
containing tens of thousands of facets, and last, but not least, thei wonderfully-formed 
and complex antenne, all help to make the unexpected sight of one “sitting” on a 
wall or tree-trunk send a thrill of intense pleasure through mind and _ body. 
In Great Britain the Sphinges number sixteen—or seventeen if we include the 
doubtful Pie Hawk as indigenous. 
Most entomologists worthy of the name are seldom without a pill-box for emergencies. 
It is astonishing in what unaccountable places good insects, either as regards rarity or 
variety, will turn up; but hawk-moths are so large that no pill-box will hold one. In 
such case the “top-hat” is very handy for conveying such captures home. Many are 
the uses to which I have at different times turned my own. 
An acquaintance, a zealous “City man,” as well as an enthusiastic entomologist, 
once caught a fine female “Ghost-Moth’—which was promptly transferred to his silk 
hat. On his way to business he was made aware that the “Ghost” was on the 
wing, having evidently mistaken the darkness of the inner regions of the hat for mght! 
On arrival at the office my friend removed his hat, and to his astonishment found that 
his hair was full of minute eggs, to the number of some hundreds! It is the habit of 
the female Ghost-Moth to shoot its eggs from its ovipositor as it flies over the grass in the 
dusk of evening. No doubt the imprisoned specimen had been labouring under a wrong 
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