200 Field, Forest, and Wayside Flowers 
stretch their wings for a flight which will end only 
with the dawn. : 
In the insect world innumerable creatures fly out 
of countless holes and hiding-places as dusk falls, 
seeking those flowers of darkness which hold con- 
tinuous receptions for them through the dewy 
summer nights. 
There is a popular but an erroneous impression 
that only two or three sorts of blossoms unfold at 
evening. The night-blooming cereus is so big and 
splendid that it occupies an undue place in the 
public mind as the flower of darkness, whose noc- 
turnal habits are shared only by the moon-flower. 
But if we bethink us that moths draw most of 
their sustenance from flower-calices, we will realize 
that there must be a whole category of night- 
blooming flowers. For though many blossoms do 
not close at dusk, but keep open house day and 
night during their whole time of blooming, the 
buds of most species expand in the sunshine, and 
the chances are that their sweets will be ex- 
tracted soon afterward by some diurnal rover. 
How, then, does Nature feed the crepiscular 
moths, which flit abroad at sundown, and the noc- 
turnal moths, which fly in darkness? We realize 
their numbers, to our cost, if we burn a lamp near 
