it, unless some of them have taken a fancy to the verandah or the inside
of a dwelling-room in the house. But each and every one of them has been
asleep in a place it has chosen, and it is probable that some, the red
admirals, for instance, will go back to that place to sleep at evening.

As there are hundreds of moths that fly by night and sleep by day at
seasons when there are perhaps only twenty species of butterflies flying
by day and sleeping by night, it is strange that the sleeping moths are
not more often found. Some kinds are often disturbed, and are seen. But
the great majority are sleeping on the bark of trees, in hedges, in the
crevices of pines, oaks and elms, and other rough-skinned timber, and we
see them not. Some prefer damp nights with a drizzle of rain to fly in,
not the weather which we should choose as inviting us to leave repose. Few
like moonlight nights; darkness is their idea of a "fine day" in which to
get up and enjoy life, many, like the dreams in Virgil's Hades, being all
day high among the leaves of lofty trees, whence they descend at the
summons of night, the--

"Filmy shapes
That haunt the dusk, with ermine capes,
And woolly breasts, and beaded eyes,"

The connection between character and bedtime which grew up from
association when human life was less complex than now has some counterpart
in the world of butterflies and insects. The industrious bees go to bed
much earlier than the roving wasps. The latter, which have been out
stealing fruit and meat, and foraging on their own individual account,
"knock in" at all hours till dark, and may sometimes be seen in a state of
disgraceful intoxication, hardly able to find the way in at their own
front door. The bees are all asleep by then in their communal dormitory.