more minutely than one would expect them to be — with black, or dark 

 shadow-brown, and iridescent green-blue, green, or golden bronze. Judg- 

 ing by the fineness of their rich obliterative patterns, as well as their pro- 

 nounced appendages, the "tails" on their hind- wings, we must suppose these 

 moths to have habits of quiet diurnal resting or feeding, of which we know 

 little or nothing. But the "tails" of some of them, e. g., the most beautiful 

 Urania leilus (called in Trinidad the "Green Page"), undoubtedly serve 

 them in flight, in the manner of the tails of peacocks and pheasants, etc. 

 (Chapter XVII, p. 95) — Pleading enemies to strike behind them. For these 

 tails are white (brightest at the tip, and forward blended into green), and the 

 most conspicuous part of the moth in flight. Like the tails of certain newts 

 and lizards (which also, as we have seen, are often thus 'dazzlingly' and 

 'distractively' colored), these white appendages can even be seized and torn 

 off without grave injury to their possessor, who thereafter merely wants one 

 safeguard. Doubtless, however, they often cause the attacker to strike en- 

 tirely behind the moth. A like use, among others, is evidently subserved by 

 all rear-end appendages of moths and butterflies — especially aerial ones, and 

 especially when the appendages are very light colored, or transversely marked. 

 Indeed, the same service is no doubt rendered even by the light- or bright- 

 colored hind wings foiled by dull fore-wings, so very common among moths, 

 although other effects of this combination are probably of more importance. 

 It constitutes, for instance, a true 'eclipsable dazzling costume,' exactly 

 corresponding to that of many butterflies. For as the butterfly, alighting, 

 hides the dazzling-color of its upper side by folding its wings perpendicularly, 

 so the moth alighting hides the dazzling-color of the upper side of its hind 

 wings by folding its fore-wings flatly over them. Yet even this is probably 

 only a subsidiary function of such markings of moths. If they catch the eye 

 when the moth is flying, they will abet his 'vanishment' when he alights by 

 their total and abrupt eclipse. Yet their main tendency is probably the 

 reduction of their wearer's conspicuousness in flight. They are, in fact, oblit- 

 erative flight-patterns, like those worn by aerial butterflies. If a creature is 



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