72 My Pond. 



themselves and go off with wonderful speed — a sort of 

 lightning flash in the dark. I have not seen any of 

 the stately and beautiful SphingidcE, humming-birds of 

 our islands, but there is a small red underwing, and a 

 lovely little eggar. Why is it that nature has endowed 

 a whole race of creatures with such wondrous beauty, 

 such elfin lightness of flight, such silence and velocity, 

 like shooting stars, and practically hidden it all from 

 the eyes of men ? How few know the night-moths 

 (only some species fly by day, and they are not 

 the most brilliant). They far outshine even the 

 butterflies in their lovely colouring, the harmony 

 and grace of their hues, and they surpass them in 

 the delicate fairy-like prettiness of their forms. And 

 then that silken silence of flight — their wings how 

 exquisitely perfect in balance, how delicate their move- 

 ment. No invention of man's can compare with it. 

 The common idea of moths has adhering to it some 

 unlucky association of the hated and destructive clothes- 

 moth — something that suggests dust and musty offen- 

 sive odours, or only a degree better, the irritating per- 

 sistence of some smaller species round the candle or 

 lamp in the evening. The moths are, indeed, the 

 jewels of the night — more brilliant than the butterflies, 

 who are, in fact, the moths of day, as the moths are 

 the butterflies of night. The French, indeed, call 

 them the papillons-de-nuit, which is truly a poem 

 in a name. Practically there is no difference in the 

 development of the two creatures, either as caterpillar, 

 chrysalis, or perfect insect. The moth is, in fact, a 

 butterfly which has developed too beautiful and har- 

 monious an aspect to escape in the daylight the attacks 

 of men and larger animals ; and prudent nature has 

 bred in them the protective instinct, so that only under 



