THE ENTOMOLOGISTS 
WEEKLY INTELLIGENCER. 
No. 111.] SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 1858. [Price IcZ. 
CRUELTY OP IGNORANCE. 
In another column will be found a 
communication, from W. V., headed 
“A Story of a Death’s Head Moth.” 
The circumstance which seems to have 
much perplexed our correspondent is 
very easily explained. 
1. All insects, with hardly an ex- 
ception, require whilst their wings are 
growing to hang them downwards (see 
the letters on the subject in the first 
volume of the ‘ Intelligencer,’ pp. 60, 
92, 117 and 156). A very small moth 
like a Nepliciila may, and frequently 
does, grow its wings while in a hori- 
zontal position by throwing them over 
its back ; but a Death’s Head could 
not accomplish such a feat, and, in 
order to grow its wings properly, it 
must fix itself in a perpendicular posi- 
tion, and allow the wings meeting over 
the back to grow downwards, their own 
weight being completely neutralized in 
this position, or else rather favouring 
the process. Now a Death’s Head 
under an inverted bell-glass finds itself 
placed in the very situation least suit- 
able to it ; it wants to crawl up the 
sides of its prison — it cannot; the glass 
affords no hold to its claws, and the 
oblique position of the walls of its 
cage renders the predicament even 
more awkward ; it crawls round and 
round in vain efforts to find a single 
place whence it can climb. Like 
Archimedes, no doubt, it loudly 
squeaked, 
“ Give me whereon to stand,” 
concluding the sentence, however, with, 
“and I will grow my wings.” 
2. All insects, soon after emerging 
from the pupa-state, eject from the 
anus some liquid, — the superfluous 
moisture they contain : the quantity of 
this varies in different species, ac- 
cording to size, &c., but in the Death’s 
Head is about a teaspoonfull ; the un- 
happy captive, in its frantic struggles 
to attain a footing, naturally threw 
out all its ballast in order to lighten 
the ship as much as possible, and 
thus, as it still continued its struggles, 
it trailed itself through the discharged 
liquid, and daubed the sides of its 
prison therewith. 
All through that night, — that long 
and weary night, — whilst our corre- 
spondent was sleeping quietly in his 
bed, was this poor Death’s Head suf- 
fering agonies, that those who have 
not “tried to grow their wings” can 
scarcely conceive. Well might the poor 
thing be “inert and exhausted” the 
next morning. 
H 
