THE GHOST MOTH. 
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ed with buff ; the lady reposer has her upper wings of 
a tawny yellow, spotted and banded with deep brown. 
They are very inert creatures, easily captured, and their 
existence appears to be of very short duration, as we 
soon cease to observe them, either in action or at rest. 
The male probably becomes the prey of every bird that 
feeds by night ; his color and his actions rendering him 
particularly obnoxious to dangers of this nature, and 
the frequency with which we find his wings scattered 
about, points out the cause of death to most of them. 
The bat pursues with great avidity all those creatures 
that fly in the evening; and by its actions it seems to 
meet with constant employment, and has greater prob- 
ability of success, than some insectivorous birds that 
feed by day, as all the myriads which abound at this 
time are the sole prey of itself and a few nocturnal 
ramblers. From this singular flight in the twilight hour, 
haunting as it were one particular spot, the fancy of 
some collector, considering it as a spectrelike action, 
named it the “ ghost moth.” 
The fern owl, but chiefly, I conjecture, the larger 
bats, are the creatures that have caused me to expe- 
rience at times both envy and regret, when I have ob- 
served scattered in some woodland path, amidst the 
fragments of their nightly banquet, the relics of such 
beautiful insects as the emperor of the woods, the 
verdigris moth, and twenty other rare insects, to be ob- 
tained only after the patience of years, or fortune of the 
hour ; and yet our merciless birds devour these choice 
dainties without compunction or regard. This ghost 
moth discharges her eggs in a very singular manner, 
and frequently immediately upon capture, not delibe- 
rately protruding them, but dismissing them from the 
oviduct in rapid succession, until it is exhausted, with 
a slight elastic force, that conveys them clear from the 
abdomen. They are perfectly dry and unadhesive. 
It requires more than usual delicate management to 
preserve an uninjured specimen of the male of this 
species, as the slightest touch robs the wings of the fine 
scaly plumage which is affixed to their film or substance 
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