THE ENTOMOLOGIST’S WEEKLY INTELLIGENCER. 149 
its wings, expansion taking place as 
completely as in the unmutilated speci- 
men. On the approach of night, the 
mutilated male makes no voluntary effort 
to use its wings. He is gentle and 
docile, and permits himself to be handled 
without betraying a desire to escape or 
any sense of danger. If at this time 
one endeavours to compel him to fly he 
agitates his wings with a trembling 
motion ; and if thrown into the air, uses 
them so ineffectually as not to break 
the force of his fall, or so as to pre- 
cipitate him head foremost to the earth 
with a shock that appears to benumb 
him. By persistence he is at last, per- 
haps, driven to use the organs of flight; 
but whilst employing them with vigour 
his position is reversed in mid-air, and 
he descends to the earth, vainly endea- 
vouring to change it or arrest his fall ; 
or he dashes himself with violence 
against some obstacle, thus bringing his 
flitrht to a sudden conclusion. The 
■power to hover has been completely lost. 
After a few efforts of this kind it becomes 
almost impossible to compel a mutilated 
specimen to attempt flight. It will re- 
main fixed in one place for two or three 
days, and at the end of that time may 
make a voluntary effort to use its wings. 
The irregularity, not to say the madness 
of its flight, is no less observable than in 
the beginning. Under these circum- 
stances one of my specimens escaped 
into the open air from my study in day- 
light. After extricating himself from 
amongst the branches of a tree standing 
near the door, he arose into the air in a 
spiral tract, around which he ascended 
until attaining a height at which he was 
almost lost to sight. Here he main- 
tained himself by sailing on his wings, 
until I lost sight of him by intervening 
houses. But though I placed myself 
quickly in a position to see him again, 
he was no where visible, and must have 
descended suddenly from mid-air. 
The males of the same species, taken 
by what is called pairing , in full posses- 
sion of all their powers and instincts, 
and animated especially by the sexual 
instinct, are strongly attracted by light. 
If the light in a room be so guarded that 
the specimen cannot injure itself, and a 
perfect male be held by the thumb and 
fingers beneath the wings and thrown 
with force in a direct line from the light, 
the individual, by the use of the wings, 
will arrest himself as the force of the 
impulsion diminishes, and, reversing his 
position in the air, will return to the 
light in a direct line. This may be 
repeated any number of times, and will 
be followed invariably by the same re- 
sult. Let the antennae of the specimen 
then be excised in successive portions. 
The excision of the upper third does not 
diminish the power to arrest itself and 
to return again in a direct line ; but 
beyond this point flight begins to be im- 
paired without effecting in any manner 
the desire to return, until at last we 
reach a point where it becomes evident 
that the voluntary direction of flight is 
no longer under the volition of the 
insect, or that some co-ordinating in- 
fluence is wanting, having special rela- 
tion to the direction of flight, or the uses 
of the muscles of the alary organs. In- 
stead of being capable of arresting itself 
and returning in a direct path, the insect 
now darts from the point of arrest to the 
right or left, to the ceiling or the floor; 
and this uncertainty of direction and 
