222 THE DEATH'S-HEAD MOTH. 
conceive. Truly may we say, “who can find out the 
Almighty to perfection ? ” 
Our extensive cultivation of the potato furnishes us 
annually with several specimens of that fine animal the 
death’s-head moth (acherontia atropos), and in some 
years I have had as many as eight brought me in the 
larva or chrysalis state. Their changes are very un- 
certain. I have had the larva change to a chrysalis in 
July, and produce the moth in October ; but generally 
the aurelia remains unchanged till the ensuing summer. 
The larvae or caterpillars, “ strange ungainly beasts,” as 
some of our peasantry call them, excite constant atten- 
tion when seen, by their extraordinary size and un- 
common mien, with horns and tail, being not unusually 
five inches in length, and as thick as a finger. This 
creature was formerly considered as one of our rarest 
insects, and doubtful if truly indigenous ; but for the 
last twenty years, from the profuse cultivation of the 
potato, is become not very uncommon in divers places. 
Many insects are now certainly found in England, which 
former collectors, indefatigable as they were, did not 
know that we possessed ; while others again have been 
lost to us moderns. Some probably might be introduced 
with the numerous exotic plants recently imported, or 
this particular food may have tended to favor the increase 
of rarely existent natives ; but how such a creature as 
this could have been brought with any plant is quite 
beyond comprehension. We may import continental 
varieties of potatoes, but the death’s-head moth we have 
never observed to have any connexion with the tuber 
itself, or inclination for it. As certain soils will pro- 
duce plants by exposure to the sun’s rays, or by aid of 
peculiar manures, when no pre-existent root or germ 
could rationally be supposed to exist ; so will peculiar 
and long intervening seasons give birth to insects from 
causes not to be divined. We may perhaps conclude, 
that some concurrence produced this sphinx, and then 
its favorite food, the potato plant, nourished it, to the 
augmentation of its species. 
Superstition has been particularly active in suggesting 
causes of alarm from the insect world ; and where man 
