202 Field, Forest, and Wayside Flowers 
shed upon the night air, a mute invitation to the 
vine’s best friends, the ‘‘ hawk” or ‘‘ sphinx” moths. 
Several sorts of these sphinxes visit the flowers 
during the earlier hours of the night. One, which 
begins his supper before daylight has faded, is 
rather larger than a bumble-bee. His body and 
upper wings are in dull shades of gray and brown, 
but on his under wings are patches of ‘‘ sunset ’”’- 
pink, which show that his habits are crepuscular 
rather than nocturnal. For the true night-moths, 
the ‘‘ butterflies of the earth’s shadow,”’ are dun- 
colored, gray, or white. Nature, which never 
wastes, has withheld from them the colors which 
would be invisible to their mates, and _ has 
sent them abroad as sombrely clad as so many 
nuns and friars. This little visitor, with the bright 
colors on his wings, roves abroad in the evening 
and morning twilight when there is enough light 
to reveal his adornment to his lady-love. 
Later in the night, when he has supped, the 
vine will be visited by larger sphinxes, dusky or 
sad-colored, as are all insects which fly in dark- 
ness. All these moths have long  proboscises, 
which can reach down to the bases of deep and 
slender blossom-tubes, and which coil up_ like 
watchsprings when the insects are at rest. 
