night-butterfly

And even as a lad, and for the sport of it, have I followed and found by its scent alone the great night-butterfly, marked brown and crimson, and larger than a little bat, whose head bears tiny ferns, and whose wings are painted with the four quarters of the moon.

The Hidden Children 1899

The soul of the dead woman taps at the window in the shape of a night-butterfly or moth -- imagining, perhaps, that she has still a voice and can make herself heard by the man that she loves.

Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn Lafcadio Hearn 1877