The following tests tell me that any material, no matter what, can take the place of the leafy branch, that chance inspiration of mine. Some time in advance, I place the female on a couch of cloth or flannel, of wadding or paper. I even subject her to the hardship of a camp-bed of wood, glass, marble or metal. All these objects, after a contact of sufficient length, have the same powerful attraction for the males as the mother Monk herself. They retain this property to a varying extent, according to their nature. The best are wadding, flannel, dust, sand, in short, porous objects. Metals, marble and glass, on the contrary, soon lose their efficacy. Lastly, anything on which the female has [[296]]rested communicates its virtue to other places by simple contact, as witness the Moths crowding to the seat of the cane-bottomed chair after the oak-branch had fallen from it.
Let us use one of the best beds, flannel, for instance, and we shall see a curious thing. I place at the bottom of a long test-tube or of a narrow-necked bottle, just wide enough to allow of the Moth’s passage, a piece of flannel on which the mother has been lying all the morning. The callers go into the vessels, flounder about, do not know how to get out again. I have invented a mouse-trap for them by means of which I could do terrific execution. Let us release the poor things, remove the piece of stuff and put it away in an hermetically closed box. The infatuated Moths go back to the test-tube, headlong reenter the trap. They are attracted by the effluvia which the saturated flannel has imparted to the glass.
I am fully convinced. To summon the Moths of the district to the wedding, to apprise them at a distance of her presence and to guide them, the bride emits an extremely subtle scent, imperceptible to our own organs of smell. With the mother Monk held to [[297]]their nostrils, those around me perceive not the least odour, not even the youngest, whose senses are not yet vitiated.
This quintessence easily impregnates every object on which the female rests for any length of time; and thenceforth the actual object becomes as potent a centre of attraction as the mother herself, until the emanations are dispelled.
Nothing visible betrays the bait. On a piece of paper, a recent resting-place around which the visitors crowd, there is not an appreciable trace, no moisture of any kind; the surface is just as clean as before the impregnation.
The product is slowly elaborated and has to accumulate a little while before manifesting its full strength. When taken from her couch and placed elsewhere, the female loses her attractions for the time and becomes an object of indifference; it is the resting-place, saturated by long contact, that draws the newcomers. But the batteries are recharged and the deserted one recovers her power.
The appearance of the warning effluvium is delayed for a longer or shorter period according to the species. The newly-hatched [[298]]Moth has to mature for a time and to put her distillery in order. A female Great Peacock, born in the morning, sometimes has visitors that same evening, but oftener on the second day, after preparations lasting some forty hours. The female Banded Monk adjourns her summons longer than that: her banns of marriage are not published until after two or three days’ waiting.
Let us return for a moment to the problematical functions of the antennæ. The male Monk sports a sumptuous pair, similar to those of the Great Peacock, who vies with him in his matrimonial expeditions. Are we to look upon these hairy feelers as a guiding compass? I repeat, without laying much stress on the matter, my former amputations. None of the patients comes back. We must be chary of drawing inferences, however. The Great Peacock has shown us that the failure to return is due to more serious reasons than amputation of the horns.
Moreover, a second Monk, the Clover Bombyx, nearly akin to the first and, like him, superbly plumed, sets us an exceedingly perplexing problem. He is fairly plentiful around my place; even in the enclosure I find [[299]]his cocoon, which might easily be confused with that of the Oak Bombyx. I am deceived at first by the resemblance. Out of six cocoons, from which I expected to obtain Banded Monks, six females of the other species hatch at the end of August. Well, around those six females, born in my house, never a male appears, though there is no doubt that the tufted ones are present in the neighbourhood.
If spreading feathered antennæ are really organs for receiving information at a distance, why are not my richly-horned neighbours informed of what is happening in my study? Why do their fine plumes leave them indifferent to events that would bring the Banded Monk hastening up in crowds? Once more, the organ does not determine the aptitude. This one is gifted and that one is not, despite organic similarity. [[300]]