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10 BRITISH MOTHS 
chiefly feeds upon the flowers and leaves of the potato and jasmine, but is occasionally found on other Sagi as 
the woody nightshade, thorn-apple, elder, spindle-tree, &c. It is but rarely seen, as it feeds by night, concealing 
itself in the day under the leaves and in the earth. It is full-grown in August and September, when it descends 
to a considerable depth under-ground to undergo its transformations, which, unlike those of the majority of the 
family, (and rendered more singular by the size of the insect,) are effected in a few weeks ; the moth appearing at 
the end of September or beginning of October. Previously to the moth being hatched, the pupa has been observed 
by Mr. Curtis to eject some moisture from the two spiracles in front of the thorax, and when it bursts forth the 
antennz: and limbs are enveloped in a thin pellicle, like tissue-paper, which prevents them from adhering, and 
which drops off as they expand ; the wings attaining their full size in a couple of hours. 
The large size of the insect, its singularly-marked thorax, and the peculiar noise it emits, have rendered 
it an object of terror with the vulgar, by whom it has been regarded with dread as the harbinger of 
pestilence and forerunner of death. Liatreille tells us that it appeared one year in Brittany in great numbers, 
and as at this period an epidemic malady was raging with much violence, the mortality was attributed by the 
ignorant to this harmless moth. 
Much discussion has taken place relative to the mode in which the squeaking sound mentioned above is 
produced, and which is emitted by both sexes when alarmed, but at present no satisfactory conclusion has been 
obtamed upon the subject. An interesting memoir has recently been published in the “Annales de la 
Société Entomologique de France” for 1839, detailing a series of observations made in conjunction, with 
a view to the determination of the question, by Messrs. Duponchel, sen. and jun., Aubé, Boisduval, Pierret, 
and Rambur. 
Réaumur attributes the sound to the friction of the proboscis against the palpi, and the inner surface of the 
second joint of the latter organs exhibits a peculiar structure, not unfitted for the propagation of such a sound. 
M. de Johet, however, having deprived a specimen of its proboscis and palpi, found that the noise was still produced, 
especially when the wings were put in motion; he accordingly considers that this motion acting upon the air 
contained beneath the scales of the front of the thorax, is the cause of the sound ; more especially as a specimen 
when deprived of these scales was mute. Another observer, M. Lorey, conceived that he had detected the cause 
in the rushing of the air through two tracheex at the base of the abdomen, which, in repose, are concealed beneath 
two pencils of hairs, and which are dilated into a star when the noise js produced *, M. Passerini considered 
that the sound was produced in the interior of the front of the head, being emitted from a cavity which 
communicates with the canal of the proboscis, and in which are placed the requisite muscles for the elevation 
and depression of this organ, the former movement causing the air to enter into, and the latter to expel it from the 
cavity—in fact the noise was continued although both the proboscis and abdomen were cut off, whereas it entirely 
ceased when the muscles were either cut through or traversed by a strong pin thrust vertically into the head. 
More recently, M. Goureau (Annales, 1837) has Suggested that the sound is produced by the apparatus described 
by M. Lorey ; but that as the apertures in question are not perforated (thus not being spiracles) the sound must 
be produced in a manner analog i 
Pp é ogous to that of the Cicade. All these suggestions have been proved by the 
experiments of the committee of French Lepidopterists, mentioned above, to be without foundation. That of 
a eg Ls 
* M. Alex. Nordmann, unacquainted with the rese 

arches of M, Lorey, adopted the same opinion, in a memoir read before the Academy 
of Sciences at St. Petersburgh on the 8th of December, 1837. 

