124 Life and Immortahty. 
thorax is white, occasionally yellowish or greenish, and 
coursed by the purple-brown stripe that traverses the entire 
length of the upper edge of the wings; and the abdomen, 
similarly colored, and clothed with white, wool-like hairs. 
The head is small and white, and furnished with broad, flat 
and strongly pectinated antennez, which are very much wider 
in the male. The legs are purple-brown, and poorly adapted 
for walking, but this defect is largely compensated for in the 
wide stretch of wings, that fit their possessor for powerful 
and long-sustained flight. 
Such is Luna in her various transformations. Notwith- 
standing her great size and almost matchless loveliness, her 
habits are not proportionally noteworthy. The gift of 
superior beauty, in the insect as in the mammalian world, 
does not often carry with ita high order of intelligence. It 
is true the young Luna knows pretty well the secret of dis- 
sembling. How quickly she perceives the approach of an 
enemy! And she knows how to deal with him, but her little 
trick of simulating death, or an immobile twig, does not 
always succeed with the wily spider, or artful ichneumon. 
That she is a tolerably good connoisseur of the character of 
foods, there can be no question. You cannot deceive her. 
Take from her the foods her ancestors have used for cen- 
turies untold, and substitute others she knows nothing about, 
and she is at once cognizant of the change. However 
hungry she may be, and in her early growing years she is 
ever a voracious feeder, she will starve rather than eat what 
the unwritten law of her race has strictly interdicted. I have 
known cases where death has ensued, or the caterpillar has 
pupated earlier than usual, when alien food has been given 
it to eat. But in the beginning of life, just after the first 
skin-moulting has been effected, ere the little creature has 
attained its seventh day of age, no trouble is experienced in 
changing the food, almost anything edible in the plant-line 
being eaten, though some things with a more decided relish 
than others. In the matter of cocoon-weaving, where the 
