THE HUMMING-BIRD HAWK 43 

 PLATE XXIV 



THE HUMMING-BIRD HAWK (i) 



On a hot summer's day you may often see this 

 beautiful moth hovering in front of geraniums 

 and other flowers in the garden, with its long 

 trunk plunged deeply down into the blossoms in 

 order to suck up their sweet juices. And if you 

 stand a few feet away and listen carefully, you 

 will hear a low humming noise, which is caused 

 by the rapid movements of the wings. It looks 

 and sounds, in fact, very much like a humming- 

 bird, and people who have lived for many years 

 in hot countries, and have then come to England, 

 have often found it very difficult to believe that 

 they were looking at a moth, and not at one of 

 the beautiful little birds which they had known 

 so well. 



The caterpillar of the Humming-bird Hawk is 

 greenish-brown, or bluish-green, sprinkled with 

 tiny white dots, and with a pinkish-white stripe 

 running along each side of its body. Below this 

 is another stripe of dull yellow, and at the end 

 of the body is a blue horn with a yellow tip. It 

 feeds upon bedstraw, and when it has finished 

 growing it buries itself just below the surface 

 of the ground, and then turns into a reddish- 

 brown chrysalis. 



