83 *^® "^°^^^ ^'^^ ^^6 candle 



When evening comes she goes in turn to several of the 

 flowers just opening for their one night of perfect bloom. 

 While the male, who has already done his duty, flutters 

 uselessly about, she collects from the anthers a ball of the 

 pollen which is surrounded by a sticky gum to prevent its 

 accidental dispersal. After she has collected under her chin 

 a mass somewhat larger than her head, she climbs the pistil 

 of a different flower and into it she inserts her egg tube 

 about a third of the way dowa from the top and injects 

 several eggs. However she "knows" that if she left it at 

 tliat her larva would have nothing to feed on. Accord- 

 ingly, she mounts the rest of the way up the pistil, deposits 

 the pollen ball on the stigma, and moves her head back 

 and forth to rub the pollen well in. She eats neither nectar 

 nor pollen. She gets no immediate benefit from her action. 

 It has no purpose other than to fertilize the flower. 



The insect which does these remarkable things is noth- 

 ing much to look at — a little inch-long moth, silvery white 

 in color and, so far as anyone knows, quite conventional 

 in behavior except during the one great moment when it 

 is impelled to act as though it knew a great deal about the 

 physiology of plants as well as about the life history of its 

 own species. 



Most of what happens after the fertilization of the flower 

 follows a familiar pattern. The flowers wither and a few 

 days later the wormlike larva can be found. In time it will 

 bore its way out of the maturing pod, drop to the ground, 

 spin a cocoon a few inches below the surface, and there 

 transform itself into an adult completely equipped to re- 

 peat, next year, the whole complicated process. Since there 

 are commonly not more than two larvae per pod, they eat 



