Insects and Artificial Flowers

Abstract

IN a late number of NATURE a short account is given of some experiments recently made by Prof. J. Plateau, of Ghent, as to insects being deceived by artificial flowers. The nature of these experiments is not given, but the result would appear to have been of a somewhat negative character. In connection with the subject the following incident will not, I think, be considered uninteresting. I was coming by one of the lake steamers from Como to Menaggio, in September, 1875, and saw a humming-bird hawk moth, Macroglossa stellatarum, fly to some bright-coloured flowers on a lady's hat on deck, and hang, poised over them for a short time, and then fly away. During the process it made one of those short familiar darts off, for a moment, and then returned, after the manner of the moth when disturbed, and it remained long enough to convince me that it had tested the flowers and found them wanting. Another incident comes across my mind while writing this, which, though it does not exactly bear upon the point, yet is of a somewhat kindred nature. I was crossing from Harwich to Antwerp in August of the same year, and as the weather was fine, and the boat crowded, I remained on deck all night. About 4 o'clock in the morning I saw what appeared to be a bird or a bat flying rapidly about the rigging. As I was watching it the funnel of the steamer poured forth a thick column of black smoke, owing to the fresh coaling it had just received. Off went the creature as soon as it perceived the change, or, at all events, as soon as the change took place, and flew for some time in and about the smoke, now darting through it, close to the funnel mouth, and then letting itself be borne along with it, for some distance, as if in sport, looking very strange and weirdlike in the process. After awhile, as the full daylight broke, it left the smoky region above and came down towards the deck, and I then discovered it to be neither bird nor bat, but a specimen of the death's-head moth, Sphinx Atropos, whose flight I then witnessed for the first time. After running the gauntlet of several of the passengers, who tried to catch it with their hats, it settled somewhere on the spars or woodwork of the boat and escaped, perhaps to renew its flight in a similar manner the following day.