without having taken any nourishment. There are others that feed
and live for a season. Some fly in the morning, others in the glare
of noon, more in the evening, and the most important class of big,
exquisitely lovely ones only at night. This explains why so many
people never have seen them, and it is a great pity, for the nocturnal,
non-feeding moths are birdlike in size, flower-like in rare and
complicated colouring, and of downy, silent wing.

The moths that fly by day and feed are of the Sphinginae group,
Celeus and Carolina, or Choerocampinae, which includes the
exquisite Deilephila Lineata, and its cousins; also Sphingidae,
which cover the clear-winged Hemaris diffinis and Thysbe. Among
those that fly at night only and take no food are the members of
what is called the Attacine group, comprising our largest and
commonest moth, Cecropia; also its near relative Gloveri, smaller
than Cecropia and oflovely rosy wine-colour; Angulifera, the male
greyish brown, the female yellowish red; Promethea, the male
resembling a monster Mourning Cloak butterfly and the female
bearing exquisite red-wine flushings; Cynthia, beautiful in shades
of olive green, sprinkled with black, crossed by bands of pinkish
lilac and bearing crescents partly yellow, the remainder transparent.
There are also the deep yellow Io, pale blue-green Luna, and
Polyphemus, brown with pink bands of the Saturniidae; and light
yellow, red-brown and grey Regalis, and lavender and yellow
Imperialis of the Ceratocampidae, and their relatives. Modest
and lovely Modesta belongs with the Smerinthinae group; and there
are others, feeders and non-feeders, forming a list too long to
irncorporate, for I have not mentioned the Catocalae family, the
fore-wings of which resemble those of several members of the
Sphinginae, in colour, and when they take flight, the back ones