178 THE BUTTERFLY VIVARIUM. 



that is to say, pertaining to the river Acheron, one 

 of the streams which, according to the Greek my- 

 thology, had to he passed on entering the infernal 

 regions, was intended to emhody, after a classical 

 fashion, the popular superstition that death — or, in 

 other words, the speedy passage of the fatal stream 

 in question — was foretold to the unlucky individual 

 favoured with a visit from one of these insects 

 hearing the mark of the ominous skull hetween its 

 shoulders. Thus its modern name, Acherontia 

 Atropos, may he interpreted as the Achcrontian 

 messenger of Atropos. 



The singular manner in which the Moth emerges 

 from the earth, on its escape from the pupa, has no 

 doubt strengthened the superstitious notions con- 

 nected with it ; and it may be easily imagined that 

 in a more ignorant age, when a creature so pecu- 

 liarly marked was dug up at a considerable depth, 

 or seen emerging mysteriously from the earth, that 

 singular forebodings might arise. Latreille states 

 that it appeared in great numbers one season in 

 some parts of Brittany, during the time that an 

 epidemic happened to be raging, and that the fatal 

 character assumed by the disease was popularly 

 believed to be entirely owing to the appearance of 

 these dreaded insects. 



