136 death’s-head hawk-moth. 
ignorant and superstitious. We are told by Reau- 
mur that they once appeared in great abundance 
in some districts of Bretagne, and produced great 
trepidation among the inhabitants, who considered 
them to he the forerunners and even the cause 
of epidemic diseases and other calamities. “ A 
letter is now before me,” says Mr. Knapp, “ from 
' a correspondent in German Poland, where this 
insect is a common creature, and so abounded 
in 1824, that my informant collected fifty of them 
in the potato-fields of his village, where they call 
them the “ Death's-head Phantom,” the “ Wan- 
dering Death -bird,” &c. The markings on its back 
represent to these fertile imaginations the head of 
a perfect skeleton, uith the limh-hones crossed 
beneath; its cry becomes the voice of anguish, 
the moaning of a child, the signal of grief; it is 
regarded not as the creation of a benevolent being, 
but the device of evil spirits — spirits enemies to 
man, conceived and fabricated in the dark ; the 
very shining of its eyes is thought to represent the 
fiery element, whence it is supposed to have pro- 
ceeded. Flying into their apartments in the evening, 
it at times extinguishes the light, foretelling war, 
pestilence, hunger, death, to man and beast*.” 
The sound alluded to, which seems to be peculiar 
to this species among lepidopterous insects, has 
often attracted the notice of observers, but they 
have hitherto been unable to determine satisfactorily 
in what manner it is produced. As it is impos- 
* Journal of a Naturalist, page 327. 
