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one for butterflies. What^ then, is the creature that this 

 blossom is designed to woo? It proves to be one of the 

 sphinx moths, — those night-flying, hummingbird-like 

 insects that we may find about our garden flowers on nearly 

 any pleasant evening after dusk. 



An examination of the structure of the flower shows that 

 the stigma is a little sticky patch in the throat of the 

 blossom. The pollen is gathered into two tiny pear- 

 shaped bundles in pockets, one on either side of tlie 

 throat; each of these bundles is connected by a short, 

 slender filament to a sticky disk or "button." The 

 sphinge, as sphinx-moths are commonly called, appears. 

 Sometimes it takes its food while hovering as a humming- 

 bird does or it may alight on the petal-platform that is 

 extended for it. In either case, in order to reach the 

 nectar with its long tongue, the face is pushed well into the 

 throat of the flower and each eye comes in contact with 

 one of the sticky pollen-buttons. As the moth head is 

 withdrawn, the pcllen-masses are also withdrawn from 

 their pockets, one plastered to eitlier eye of the sphinge. 

 Strange as it might seem, these do not to a great extent 

 annoy the insect for it must be remembered that each of 

 the apparent eyes is in reality a great compound one 

 composed of thousands of simple eyes and the covering 

 of a few of them would not affect the sight of the creature 

 in the least. 



When the sphinge leaves tlie flower these pollen masses 

 are pointing upward and if they remained in tlie same 

 position they would simply be pressed into the pockets of 

 the next blossom visited. But on exposure to the air the 

 connecting stalk between the pollen and the button con- 

 tracts, and the pollen masses are brought forward into 

 just the position to be pressed against the stigma. Some, 

 at least, of the grains are left at the door of this blossom 

 and the moth may even get other buttons attached to its 

 eyes. They have been caught and found to have four or 

 five on each eye. 



