HUMMING-BIRD MOTH. 63 



Bwam across this strait, to go and pass a few minutes with 

 Hero. I don't know whether Hero was very beautiful, but 

 ■with the first comer and a few obstacles, a passion is easily 

 kindled. Ovid says she was "beautiful exceedingly," and I 

 will take Ovid's word. One night a tempest arose, whilst 

 Leander, guided by the torch which his lover lighted every 

 evening, was endeavouring in vain to gain the opposite shore. 

 The poet puts a very touching prayer into his mouth: he 

 implores the tempest not to drown him till his return; the 

 tempest was deaf, and the unhappy Hero beheld the body of 

 her lover cast by the waves at her feet. 



The glowworm only fires her torch, and takes so much 

 pains to show it, becatise it may serve as a guide to a crowd of 

 little vagabond Leanders, to whom nature has granted wings. 

 The males of the glowworms are much smaller than the 

 females, and, I should think, much more numerous, for there 

 are seldom less than three or four around one female. They 

 are not luminous. * 



While, following the example of Diogenes, but from another 

 motive, the glowworm bears her lantern, a large motht 

 passes close to me, its wings 

 making a noise almost as g*^ \ 

 loud as those of a "small """ i ^ - ^ ^ ' 

 bird; in fact, it is much 

 larger than some humming- 

 birds. It passes by the 

 sleeping flowers, it is in 

 search of something ; it 

 knows that in those beau- 

 tiful garnet and topaz cups 

 of the nightshade and Oeno- 

 theras, a sweet nectar is prepared for it. There it is over an 

 Oenothera; it hovers over without touching the flower, its 

 lyings appear motionless, so quickly does it move them. 

 Then it unrolls a trunk coiled beneath its head, which escaped 

 my sight, but which is longer than the whole insect; that 

 trunk separates in two ; each of the two is a perfect trunk, by 



* The author is not quite correct here. The rcale glowworm does give out some 

 light, but it is very faint. — Ed. 

 t Sphinx liguttri. — £d. 



HUMHIKG-BIRD UOTH. 



