304 The Senses of the Lower Animals . [July, 
But there is another method of catching Lepidoptera 
which is even yet more convincingly demonstrative of the 
wonderfully acute scent possessed by these creatures. We 
refer to the practice of “ sembling.” If a virgin female moth 
of certain species is shut up in a box, males of the same 
species will make their appearance, even from a very consi- 
derable distance. Thus Mr. Wonfor, in a paper read before 
the Brighton and Sussex Natural History Society, mentioned 
that he had by this method captured, in two days, fifty males 
of Saturnia Carpini . He declares that the attraction “ can- 
not be by sight, for the females were in a box on the side of 
a slope, and the males flew across the valley and close to 
the ground. When trying similar experiments with other 
species we purposely selected a field with a wood at the end, 
and saw the males flying over the tops of the trees.” They 
always, further, approach against the wind. Two additional 
circumstances have to be taken into consideration : as soon 
as the female is impregnated the attraction ceases, and, 
further, the moths in question are by no means common. 
In the same district where Mr. Wonfor made his experi- 
ments any person, not having with him a female S'. Carpini, 
could scarcely count upon meeting with a single male of the 
species in the course of a day’s ramble. 
The following instance, recorded by Mr. J. H. Davis, 
Curator of the Portsmouth Philosophical Society,* is con- 
clusive against the supposition that the males are attracted 
to the female in consequence of discerning her afar off : — • 
“ Another female of the same species ( Sphinx Convolvuli) 
had been produced ; three males found their way into my 
study down the chimney.” Many more instances of male 
moths coming and hovering round, or settling upon perfectly 
opaque boxes in which females of their own species were 
imprisoned, might be adduced did any necessity exist. It 
is, however, contended by some that the attraction, though 
not sight, may be a sound. The virgin female, they argue, 
produces a sound inaudible to human ears, but distinctly 
heard and understood by the males of her species, and be- 
comes silent as soon as her love-call has been answered. 
There is not in this supposition anything necessarily absurd ; 
but the following faCt proves it to be utterly inadmissible. 
Mr. J. H. Davis, in the Journal above cited, tells us : — “On 
going into my study, in the evening, I found a female Sphinx 
Convolvuli fluttering on the floor. On lifting it up it ran up 
* Zoological Journal, vol. v., p. 142. 
