 CHAPTER V. THE LADY BIRD DELA FILE LENITA In that same country garden where my first acropia was found, Dela Fila Lenita was one of my earliest recollections. This moth flew among the flowers of a special sweetness all day long, just as did the hummingbirds. And I was taught that it was a bird also, the lady bird. The little tan and gray thing hovering in air before the flowers was almost as large as the hummingbirds, sipping honey as they did, swift in flight as they, and both my parents thought it a bird. They did not know the hummingbirds were feasting on small insects attracted by the sweets quite as often as on honey, for they never had examined closely. They had been taught, as I was, that this other constant visitor to the flowers was a bird, when a child a hummingbird nested in a honeysuckle climbing over my mother's bedroom window. My father lifted me with his handkerchief bound across my nose, on the supposition that the bird was so delicate it would desert its nests and eggs if they were breathed upon, to see the tiny cup of lichens with a brown finish, so fine it resembled the lining of a chestnut bur, and two tiny eggs. I well remember he told me that I had now seen the nest and eggs of the smallest feathered creature except the lady bird, and he had never found its cradle himself. Every summer I discovered nests by the dozens, and for several years a systematic search was made for the home of a lady bird. One of the unfailing methods of finding locations was to climb a large Bartlett pear tree that stood beside the garden fence, and from an overhanging bow watch where birds flew with bugs and worms they collected. Lady birds were spied upon, but when they left our garden they rose high in the air and went straight from sight toward every direction, so locating their nests as those of other birds were found seemed impossible. Then I tried going close to the sweetest flowers, those oftenest visited, the petunias, yellow-day lilies, and trumpet creepers, and sitting so immovably I was not noticeable while I made a study of the lady birds. My first discovery was that they had no tail, one poised near enough to make sure of that, and I hurried to my father with the startling news. He said it was nothing remarkable birds frequently lost their tails. He explained how a bird in close quarters has power to relax its muscles and let its tail go in order to save its body when under the paw of a cat or caught in a trap. That was satisfactory, but I thought it must have been a spry cat to get even a paw on the lady bird, for frequently hummingbirds could be seen perching, but never one of these. I watched the tail question sharply and soon learned the cats had been after every lady bird that visited our garden or any of our neighbors, for not one of them had a tail. When this information was carried to my father, he became serious, but finally he said, perhaps the tail was very short, those of hummingbirds or wrens were, and apparently some waterbirds had no tail, or at least a very short one. That seemed plausible, but still I watched this small and most interesting bird of all, this bird that no one ever had seen taking a bath or perching, and whose nest had never been found by a person so familiar with all outdoors as my father. Then came a second discovery. It could curl its little beak into a coil when leaving a flower. A few days later I saw distinctly that it had four wings, but I could discover no feet. I became a rank doubter, and when these convincing proofs were carried to my father he also became dubious. I have always thought and been taught that it was a bird, he said, but you see so clearly and report so accurately, you almost convince me it is some large insect, possibly of the moth family. When I carried this opinion to my mother and told her, no doubt pompously, that very possibly I had discovered that the ladybird was not a bird at all, she hailed it as high treason and said, of course it is a bird. That forced me to action. The desperate course of capturing one was resolved upon. If only I could, surely its feet, legs, and wings would tell if it were a bird. By the hour I slipped among those bloom-bordered walks between the beds of flaming sweet Williams, buttercups, flocks, tiger and daylilies, Job's tears, Hollyhawks, petunias, poppies, mignon yet, and every dear old-fashioned flower that grows, and followed along the flower-edge beds of lettuce, radishes, and small vegetables, relentlessly trailing ladybirds. Pass after pass I made at them, but they always dived and escaped me. At last, when I almost had given up the chase, one went nearly from sight in a trumpet creeper. With a sweep the flower was closed behind it and I ran into the house crying, that at last I had caught a ladybird. Holding carefully the trumpet was cut open with a pin, and although the moth must have been slightly pinched and lacking in down when released, I clung to it until my mother and every doubting member of my family was convinced that this was no bird at all, for it lacked beak, tail, and feathers, while it had six legs and four wings. Father was delighted that I had learned something new all by myself, but I really think it slightly provoked my mother when thereafter I always refused to call it a bird. This certainly was reprehensible. She should have known all the time that it was a moth. The other day a club woman of Chicago, who never in her life has considered money, who always has had unlimited opportunities for culture, both in America and Europe, who speaks half a dozen languages, and has the care of but one child, came in her automobile to investigate the limberlost. Almost her first demand was to see pictures. One bird study I handed her was of a brooding king-rail over a foot tall, with a three-foot wing sweep and a long curved bill. She cried, Oh, see the dear little hummingbird! If a woman of unlimited opportunity in this day of the world does not know a rail from a hummingbird, what could you expect of my little mother, who spoke only two languages, reared twelve lusty children, and never saw an ocean? So by degrees, the Lady Bird of the Garden resolved itself into the Dila-phila-linida. Dila-evening, phila-lover, linida-lined, the lined evening lover. Why evening is difficult to understand. For all my life this moth occurs more frequently with me in the fore and early afternoon than in the evening. So I agree with those entomologists who call it the white-lined morning sphinx. It is lovely in modest garb, delicately lined, but exceedingly rich in color. It has the long, slender wings of the sphinctered moths, and in grace and tirelessness of flight resemble celius, the swallow of the moth family. Its head is very small and its thorax large. The eyes are big and appear bigger because set in so tiny a head. Under its tongue, which is a full inch long, is a small white spot that divides, spreads across each eye, and runs over the back, until even with the bases of the front wings. The top of the head and shoulders are all of brown, decorated with one long white line dividing in the middle and a shorter on each side. The abdomen is a pale brown, has a straight line running down the middle of the back, made of small broken squares of very dark brown, touched with a tiny mark of white. Down each side of this small line extends a larger one, wider at the top and tapering, and this is composed of squares of blackish brown alternating with white, the brown being twice the size of the white. The sides of the abdomen are flush with beautiful rosy pink, and beneath it is tan color. The wings are works of art. The front are a rich olive brown, marked a long way in the middle by a wide band of buff, shading to lighter buff at the base. Their edge from the costa to where they meet the back wings was a line of almost equal width of darker buff, the lower edge touched with white. Beginning at the base and running an equal distance apart from the costa to this line are fine markings of white even and clear as if laid on with a ruler. The surprise comes in the back wings that show almost entirely when the moth is poised before a flower. These have a small triangle of the rich dark brown and a band of the same at the lower edge with a finish of olive and a fine line of white as a marginal decoration. Crossing each back wing is a broad band of lovely pink of deeper shade than the color on the sides. This pink combined with the olive, dark browns and white lining makes the color scheme of peculiar richness. Its antennae are long, clubbed and touched with white at the tips. The legs and body are tan color. The undersides of the wings are the same color as the upper but the markings of brown and buffish pink show through in lighter color while the white lining resembles rows of tan ridges beneath. Its body is covered with silky hairs, longest on the shoulders and at the base of the wings. The eggs of the moth are laid on apple, plum or wood-bine leaves or on grape, currant, gooseberry, chickweed or dock. During May and June around old log cabins in the country with gardens that contain many of these vines and bushes and orchards of bloom where the others can be found, the lined evening lover deposits her eggs. The caterpillars emerge in about six days. The tiny ovoid eggs are a greenish yellow. The youngsters are pale green and have small horns. After a month spent in eating and skin casting the full grown caterpillar is over two inches long and as a rule a light green. There are on each segment black patches that have a touch of orange and on that a hint of yellow. The horn increases with the growth of the caterpillar can be moved at will and seems as if it were a vicious stinger but there is no sting or any other method of self-defense unless the habit of raising the head and throwing it from side to side could be so considered. With many people this movement combined with the sharp horn is enough but as is true of most caterpillars they are perfectly harmless. Some moth historians record a mustard yellow caterpillar of this family and I remember having seen some that answered the description but all I have ever known to be lanita were green. The pupae are nearly two inches long and are tan colored. They usually are found in the ground in freedom or deep under old logs among a mass of leaves spun together. In captivity the caterpillars seem to thrive best on a diet of purslane and they pupate perfectly on dry sand in boxes. These moths have more complete internal development than those of night for they feed and live throughout the summer. I photographed a free one feasting on the suites of petunias in a flowerbed at the cabin on the seventh of October. End of chapter five Chapter six of Moss of the Limberlost This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Moss of the Limberlost by Gene Stratton Porter Chapter six Moss of the Moon Actius Luna One morning there was a tap at my door and when I opened it I found a tall slender woman having big soft brown eyes and a winning smile. In one hand she held a shoebox having many rough preparations. I always have been glad that my eyes softened at the touch of pleading on her face and a smile sprang an answer to hers before I saw what she carried. For confession must be made that a perforated box is a passport to my good graces any day. The most wonderful things come from those that are brought to my front door. Sometimes they contain a belated hummingbird chilled with the first heavy frost of autumn or a wounded weasel caught on a trap set for it near a chicken coop or a family of baby birds whose parents some vandal has killed. Again they carry a sick or wounded bird that I am expected to doctor and butterflies, moss, insects and caterpillars of every description. I guess I won't stop said the woman and answered to my invitation to enter the cabin. I found this creature on my front porch early this morning and I sort of wanted to know what it was for one thing and I thought you might like to have it for another. Then of course she will come in and we will see what it is I answered leading the way into the library. There I lifted the lid slightly to take a peep and then with a cry of joy opened it wide. That particular shoebox had brought me an actious Luna newly emerged and as yet unable to fly. I held down my finger it climbed on and was lifted to the light. Any the prettiest thing asked the woman with stars sparkling in her dark eyes. Did you ever see white or white? Together we studied that moth. Clinging to my finger the living creature was of such delicate beauty as to impoverish my stock of adjectives at the beginning. Its big, percy body was covered with long, furry scales of the purest white imaginable. The wings were of an exquisite, light green color, the front pair having a heavy costa of light purple that reached across the back of the head. The back pair ended in long, artistic trailers, faintly edged with light yellow. The front wing had an oval transparent mark close to the costa attached to it with a purple line and the back had circles of the same. These decorations were bordered with lines of white, black, and red. At the bases of the wings were long, snowy, silken hairs. The legs were purple and the antennae resembled small, tan-colored ferns. That is the best I can do at description. A living moth must be seen to form a realizing sense of its shape and delicacy of color. Luna is our only large moth having trailers and these are much longer in proportion to size and of more graceful curves than our trailed butterflies. The moth's wings were fully expanded and it was beginning to exercise so a camera was set up hastily and several pictures of it secured. The woman helped me through the entire process and in talking with her I learned that she was Mrs. McCullum from a village a mile and a half north of ours that when she reached home she would have walked three miles to make the trip and all her neighbors had advised her not to come but she had a feeling that she would like to. Are you sorry? I asked. Am I sorry? she cried. Why I never had a better time in my life and I can teach the children what you have taught me. I'll bring you everything I can get my fingers on that you can use and send for you when I find bird-ness. Mrs. McCullum has kept that promise faithfully. Again and again she trudged those three miles, bringing me small specimens of many species or to let me know that she had found a nest. A big oak tree in Mrs. McCullum's yard explained the presence of a Luna there as the caterpillars of this species greatly prefer these leaves. Because the oak is of such slow growth it is seldom planted around residences for ornamental purposes but is to be found most frequently in the forest. For this reason Luna as a rule is a moth of the deep wood and so is seldom seen closer residence making people believe it quite rare. As a matter of fact it is as numerous where the trees its caterpillars frequent are to be found as any other moth in its natural location. Because it is of the forest the brightest light there is to attract it is the glare of the moon as it is reflected on the face of a murky pool or on the breast of the stream rippling its way through impassable thickets. There must be a self-satisfied smile on the face of the man in the moon in whose honor these delicate creatures are named when on fragile wing they hover above his mirrored reflection for of all the beauties of a June night in the forest these moths are truly his. In August of the same year while driving on a corduroy road in Michigan I aspired a Luna moth on the trunk of a walnut tree close the road. The cold damp location must account for this late emergence for subsequent events proved that others of the family were as slow in appearing. A storm of protest arose when I stopped the carriage and started to enter the swamp. The remaining occupants put in their time telling blood curdling experiences with massagers that infested those marshes and while I bent grasses and cattails to make the best footing as I worked my way toward the moth I could hear a mixed chorus brought up thirteen in the dredge at the cement factory the other day, killed nine in a hayfield below the cemetery, saw a buster crossing the road before me and my horse almost plunged into the swamp, died of a bite of one that struck him while fixing a loose board in his front walk. I am dreadfully afraid of snakes and when it seemed I could not force myself to take another step and I was clinging to a button-bush while the water rose above my low shoes the moth lowered its wings flat against the bark. From the size of the abdomen I could see that it was a female heavily weighted with eggs possibly she had made it the previous night and if I could secure her luna life history would be mine. So I set my teeth and advanced. My shoes were spoiled and my skirts bedraggled but I captured the moth and saw no indication of snakes. Soon after she was placed in a big pasteboard box and began dotting eggs in straight lines over the interior. They were white but changed color as the caterpillars approached time to hatch. The little yellow-green creatures nearly a quarter of an inch long with a black line across the head emerged in about sixteen days and fed with most satisfaction on oak but they would take hickory walnut or willow leaves also. When the weather is cold the young develops slower and I have had the egg periods stretched to three weeks at times. Every few days the young caterpillars cast their skins and emerged in brighter color and larger in size. It is usually supposed they mature in four malts and many of them do but some cast a fifth skin before transforming. When between seven and eight weeks of age they were three inches long and of a strong blue-green color most of them had tubercles of yellow tipped with blue and some had red. They spun a leaf cover cocoon much the size and shape of that of polyphemus but wider very thin with no inner case and against some solid surface whenever possible. Fearing I might not handle them rightly and lose some when ready to spin I put half on our walnut tree so they could weave their cocoons according to characteristics. They are fine large gaudy caterpillars. The handsomest one I ever saw I found among some gifts offered by Molly Cotton for the celebration of my birthday. It had finished feeding soon pupated in a sandpale and the following spring a big female emerged that attracted several males and they posed on a walnut trunk for beautiful studies. Once under the oak trees of a summer resort Miss Catherine Howell of Philadelphia intercepted a Luna caterpillar in the preliminary race before pupation and brought it to me. We offered young oak leaves but they were refused so it went before the camera. Behind the hotel I found an empty hominy can in which it soon began spinning but it seemed to be difficult to fasten the threads to the tin so a piece of board was cut and firmly wedged inside. The caterpillar clung to this and in the darkness of the can spun the largest and handsomest Luna winter quarters of all my experience. Luna hunters can secure material from which to learn this exquisite creature of night by searching for the moss on the trunks of oak, walnut, hickory, birch, or willow during the month of June. The moss emerge on the ground and climb these trees to unfold and harden their wings. The females usually remain where they are and the males are attracted to them. If undisturbed they do not fly until after mating and egg depositing are accomplished. The males take wing as soon as dusk of the first night arrives after their wings are matured. They usually find the females by 10 o'clock or midnight and remain with them until morning. I have found mated pairs as late as 10 o'clock in the forenoon. The moss do not eat and after the affairs of life are accomplished they remain in the densest shade they can find for a few days and fly at night ending their life period in from three days to a week. Few of these godly painted ones have the chance to die naturally for both birds and squirrels prey upon them, carrying away the delicate wings and feasting on the big pulpy bodies. White eggs on the upper side of leaves of the trees mentioned are a sign of lunar caterpillars in deep woods and full grown larvae can be found on these trees in August. By breaking off a twig on which they are feeding, carrying them carefully, placing them in a box where they cannot be preyed upon by flies and parasites and keeping a liberal supply of fresh damp leaves, they will finish the feeding days and weave their cocoons. Or the cocoons frequently can be found already spun among the leaves by nutting parties later in the fall. There is small question if Luna Pupae be alive for on touching the cocoons they squirm and twist so vigorously that they can be heard plainly. There is so little difference in the size of male and female lunas that I am not sure of telling them apart in the cocoon as I am certain I can's acropia. Cocoon gathering in the fall is one of the most delightful occupations imaginable. When flowers are gone, when birds have migrated, when brilliant foliage piles knee deep underfoot, during these last few days of summer zest can be added to a ramble by a search for cocoons. Carrying them home with extreme care not to jar or dent them they are placed in the conservatory among the flowers. They hang from cacti spines and over thorns on the big century plant and lemon tree. When sprinkling the hose is turned on them as they would take the rain outside. Usually they are placed in the coolest spots where ventilation is good. There is no harm whatever in taking them if the work is carefully and judiciously done. With you they are safe. Outside they have precarious chance for existence for they are constantly sought by hungry squirrels and field mice while the sharp eyes and sharper beaks of jays and crows are forever searching for them. The only danger is in keeping them too warm and so causing their emergence before they can be placed out safely at night after you have made yourself acquainted with Luna history. If they are kept cool enough that they do not emerge until May or June then you have one of the most exquisite treats nature has in store for you in watching the damp spot spread on the top of the cocoon where an asset is ejected that cuts and softens the tough fiber and allows them off to come pushing through in the full glory of its gorgeous birth. Nowhere in nature can you find such delicate and daintily shaded markings or color so brilliant and fresh as on the wings of these creatures of night. After you have learned the markings and colors and secure pictures if you desire and they begin to exhibit a restlessness as soon as it is dusk release them. They are as well prepared for all life has for them as if they had emerged in the woods. The chances are that they are sure of life at your hands then they would have been if left afield provided you keep them cool enough that they do not emerge too soon. If you want to photograph them do it when the wings are fully developed but before they have flown. They need not be handled their wings are unbroken they're down covering in place to the last scale. Their colors never so brilliant their markings the plainest they ever will be their big percy bodies full of life and they will climb with perfect confidence on any stick twig or limb held before them. Reproductions of them are even more beautiful than those of birds. By all means photograph them out of doors on a twig or leaf that their caterpillars will eat. Moths strengthen and dry very quickly outside in the warm crisp air of May or June so it is necessary to have someone beside you with the spread net covering them in case they want to fly before you are ready to make an exposure. In painting this moth the colors always should be copied from a living specimen as soon as it is dry. No other moth of my acquaintance fades so rapidly. Repeatedly I am asked which I think the most beautiful of these big night moths. I do not know all of them are indescribably attractive whether a pale green moth with purple markings is lovelier than a light yellow moth with heliotrope decorations or a tan and brown one with pink lines is a difficult thing to determine. When their descriptions are mastered and the color combinations understood I fancy each person will find the one bearing most of his favorite color the loveliest. It may be that on account of its artistically cut and colored trailers Luna has a touch of grace above any. End of chapter 6 Chapter 7 of Moths of the Limberlost This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Moths of the Limberlost by Jean Stratten Porter Chapter 7 King of the Hollyhawks Proto-Parsy Cilius Proto-Parsy Cilius was the companion of De La Fila Lanita in the country garden where I first studied nature. Why I was taught that Lanita was a bird and Cilius a moth it is difficult to understand for they appear very similar when poisoning before flowers. They visit the same blooms and vary but little in size. The distinction that must have made the difference was that while Lanita kept company with the hummingbirds and fed all day Cilius came forth at dusk and flew in the evening and at night. But that did not conclusively prove it a moth for night hawks and whipper whills did the same. Yet unquestionably they were birds. Anyway I always knew Cilius was a moth and that every big green caterpillar killed on the tomato vines meant one less of its kind among the flowers. I never saw one of these moths close a tomato or potato vine, a gymsen weed or ground cherry, but all my life I have seen their eggs on these plants. First of a pale green closely resembling the underside of the leaves and if they had been laid some time a yellow color. The eggs are not dotted along in lines or closely placed but are deposited singly or by twos at least very sparsely. The little caterpillars emerge in about a week and then comes the process of eating until they grow into the large green tomato or tobacco worms that all of us have seen. When hatched the caterpillars are green and have green coddle horns similar to Lanita. After eating for four or five days they cast their skins. This process is repeated three or four times when the full grown caterpillars are over four inches long. Exactly the color of a green tomato was pale blue and yellow markings of beautiful shades, the horns blue black and appearing sharp enough to inflict the severe wound. Like all Sphinx caterpillars Cileus is perfectly harmless but this horn in connection with the habit the creatures have of clinging to the vines with the back feet raising the head and striking from side to side makes people very sure they can bite or sting or inflict some serious hurt. So very vigorous are they in self-defense when disturbed that robins and cuckoos are the only birds I ever have seen brave enough to pick them until the caterpillars loosen their hold and drop to the ground where they are eaten with evident relish. One cuckoo of my experience that nested in an old orchard adjoining a potato patch frequently went there caterpillar hunting and played havoc with one wherever found. The shy deep woods habits of the cuckoo prevent it from coming close to houses and into gardens but robins will take these big caterpillars from tomato vines however they go about it rather gingerly and the work of reducing one to non-resistance does not seem to be at all coveted. Most people exhibit symptoms of convulsions at the sight of one yet it is a matter of education. I have seen women kiss and fondle cats and dogs one snap from which would result in disfiguration or horrible death and seem not to be able to get enough of them but they were quite equal to a genuine fate if contact were suggested with a perfectly harmless caterpillar a creature lacking all means of defense saved this demonstration of throwing the head. When full fed the caterpillars entered the earth to pupate and on the 15th of October 1906 only the day before I began this chapter the deacon in digging worms for a fishing trip to the river found a pupa case a yard from the tomato vines and six inches below the surface. He came to my desk carrying on a spade a ball of damp earth larger than a court bowl. With all care we broke this as nearly in halves as possible and found in the center a firm oval hole the size and shape of a hen's egg and in the opening a fine fresh pupa case. It was a beautiful red brown in color long and slenderer than a number of others in my box of sand and had a long tongue case turned under and fastened to the pupa beneath the wing shields. The sides of the abdomen were pitted the shape of the head and the eyes showed through the case the wing shields were plainly indicated and the abdominal shield was in round sections so that the pupa could twist from side to side when touched proving that the developing moth inside was very much alive and in fine condition. There were no traces of the cast skin the caterpillar had been so strong and had pushed so hard against the surrounding earth that the direction from which it had entered was lost. The soil was packed and crowded firmly for such a distance that this large ball was forced together. Trembling with eagerness I heredly set up a camera. This phase of moth life often has been described but I never before heard of anyone having been able to reproduce it so my luck was glorious. A careful study of this ball of earth the opening in which the case lies and the pupa with its blunt head and elaborate tongue shield will convince anyone that when ready to emerge these moths must bore the six inches to the surface with the point of the abdomen and there burst the case cling to the first twig and develop and harden the wings. The abdominal point is sharp surprisingly strong and the rings of the segments enable it to turn in all directions while the earth is mellow and moist with spring rains. To force away headfirst would be impossible on account of the delicate tongue shield and for the moth to emerge underground and dig to the surface without displacing a feather of down either before or after wing expansion is unthinkable. Yet I had always been in doubt as to precisely how the exit of a pupa case moth took place until I actually saw the earth move and the sharp abdominal point appear while working in my garden. Living pupae can be had in the fall by turning a few shovels of soil close vegetables in any country garden. In the mellow mold among cabbages and tomato vines around old log cabins close the limberloss swamp they are numerous and the emerging moths haunt the sweet old fashioned flowers. The moth named Cilius after a king of Ilusis certainly has kingly qualities to justify the appellation. The coloring is all gray, black, brown, white, and yellow and the combinations are most artistic. It is a relative of lanita. It flies and feeds by day has nearly the same length of life and is much the same in shape. The head is small and sharp eyes very much larger than lanita and tongue nearly four inches in length. The antennae are not clubbed but long and hairlike. It has the broad shoulders, the long wings, and the same shape of abdomen. The wings front and back are so modeled, lined, and touch with gray, black, brown, and white as to be almost past definite description. The back wings have the black and white markings more clearly defined. The head meets the thorax with a black band. The back is covered with long gray down and joins the abdomen with a band of black about a quarter of an inch wide and then a white one of equal width. The abdomen is the goryest part of the moth. In general it is a soft gray. It is crossed by five narrow white lines the length of the abdomen and a narrow black one down the middle. Along each side runs a band of white. On this are placed four yellow spots each circled by a band of black that joins the black band of the spot next to it. The legs and underside of the abdomen and wings are a light gray tan with the wing marking showing faintly and the abdomen below is decorated with two small black dots. My first cilius a very large and beautiful one was brought to be by Mr. Wallace Hardison who has been an interested helper with this book. The moth had a wing span of fully five and a half inches and its markings were unusually bright and strong. No other cilius quite so big and beautiful ever has come to my notice. From four and a half to five inches is the average size. There was something that mattered with this moth not a scale of down seemed to be missing, but it was torpid and would not fly. Possibly it had been stung by some parasite before taking flight at all, for it was very fresh. I just had returned from a trip north, and there were some large pieces of birch bark lying on the table on which the moth had been placed. It climbed onto one of these and clung there, so I set up the bark and made a time exposure. It felt so badly it did not even close them when I took a brush and spread its wings full width. Soon after it became motionless. I had begun photographing moths recently. It was one of my very first, and no thought of using it for natural history purposes occurred at the time. I merely made what I considered a beautiful likeness, and this was so appreciated whenever shown that I went further and painted it in watercolors. Since moth pictures have accumulated and moth history has engrossed me with its intense interest, I have been very careful in making studies to give each one its proper environment when placing it before my camera. Of all the flowers in our garden, Celius prefers the hollyhocks. At least it comes to them oftenest and remains at them longest, but it moves continually and flies so late that a picture of it has been a task. After years of fruitless effort I made one passable snapshot early in July, while the light was sufficiently strong that a printable picture could be had by intensifying the plate, and one good time exposure as a Celius with half-folded wings clamored over a hollyhock, possibly hunting a spot on which should deposit an egg or two. The hollyhock painting of this chapter is from this study. The flowers were easy, but it required a second trial to do justice to the complicated markings of the moth. This evening lover and strong flier, with its swallow-like sweep of wing, comes into the color schemes of nature with the otter, that at rare times thrust a sleek gray head from the river, with the gray brown cotton tails that bound across the stubble and the coots that herald dawn in the marshes. Exactly the shades and almost the markings of its wings can be found on very old rail fences. This lint shows lighter color and even gray when used in the house building of wasps and orioles, but I know places in the country where I could carve an almost perfectly shaded Celius wing from a weather-beaten old snake-fence rail. Celius visits many flowers, almost all of the trumpet shaped ones, in fact, but if I were an artist I scarcely would think it right to paint a hollyhock without putting King Celius somewhere in the picture, poised on his throne of air before a perfect bloom as he feasts on pollen and honey. The hollyhock is a kingly flower, with its regally lifted heads of bright bloom, and that the king of moths should show his preference for it seems eminently fitting, so we of the cabin named him King of the hollyhocks. End of Chapter 7 Chapter 8 of Moths of the Limberlost This is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org Moths of the Limberlost by Gene Stratton Porter Chapter 8 Hera of the Corn Hypercyra E.O. At the same time he gave me the Eagle's Imperialis Moths, Mr. Eisin presented me with a pair of Hypercyra E.O. They were nicely mounted on the black velvet lining of a large case in my room, but I did not care for them in the least. A picture I would use could not be made from dead, dried specimens, and history learned from books is not worth knowing in comparison with going a field and threshing it out for yourself in your own way. Because the E.O. was yellow, I wanted it. More than several specimens I had not found as yet. For yellow, be it on the face of a flower, on the breast of a bird, or in the gold of sunshine, always warms the depths of my heart. One night in June, sitting with a party of friends in the library, a shadow seemed to sweep across a large window in front. I glanced up and arose with a cry that must have made those present doubt my sanity. A perfect and beautiful E.O. was walking leisurely across the glass. A moth, I cried. I have none like it. Deacon, get the net. I caught a hat from the couch and ran to the veranda. The deacon followed with the net. I was afraid to wait, I explained. Please bring a piece of pasteboard, the size of this brim. I held the hat while the deacon brought the board. Then with trembling care we slipped it under and carefully carried the moth into the conservatory. First we turned on the light and made sure that every ventilator was closed. Then we released the E.O. for the night. In the morning we found a female clinging to a shelf, dotting it with little top-shaped eggs. I was delighted, for I thought this meant the complete history of a beautiful moth. So exquisite was the living, breathing creature. She put to shame the form and coloring of the mounted specimens. No wonder I had not cared for them. Her four wings were a strong purplish-brown in general effect, but on close examination one found the purplish tinge, a commingling of every delicate tint of lavender and heliotrope imaginable. They were crossed by a scalloped bands of grayish white and flecked with touches of the same, seeming as if they had been placed with a brush. The back wings were strong yellow, each had for its size an immense black eye spot with a blue pupil covering three-fourths of it, crossed by a perfect comma of white. The heads toward the front wings and the curves bending outward. Each eye spot was in a yellow field, strongly circled with a sharp black line, then a quarter of an inch band of yellow, next a heliotrope circle of equal width, yellow again twice as wide, then a faint heliotrope line, and last a very narrow edging of white. Both wings joined the body under a covering of long, silky, purple-brown hairs. She was very busy with egg depositing and climbed to the twig held before her without offering to fly. The camera was carried to the open, set up and focused on a favorable spot while Molly Cotton walked beside me holding a net over the moth in case she took flight in outer air. The twig was placed where she would be in the deepest shade possible while I worked rapidly with the camera. By this time experience had taught me that these creatures of moonlight and darkness dislike the open glare of day and have placed in sunlight will take flight in search of shade more quickly than they will move if touched. So until my E.O. settled where I wanted her with the wings open she was kept in the shadow. Only when I grasped the bulb and stood ready to snap was the covering lifted and for the smallest fraction of a second the full light fell on her then darkness again. In three days it began to be apparent there was something wrong with the eggs. In four it was evident and by five I was not expecting the little caterpillars to emerge and they did not. The moth had not made it and the eggs were not fertile. Then I saw my mistake. Instead of shutting the female in the conservatory at night I should have tied a soft cotton string firmly round her body and fastened it to some of the vines on the veranda. Beyond all doubt before morning a male of her kind would have been attracted to her. One learns almost as much by his mistakes as he profits from his successes in this world. Writing of this piece of stupidity at a time in my work with moths when a little thought would have taught me better reminds me of an experience I had with a caterpillar. The first one I ever carried home and tried to feed. I had an order to fill for some swamp pictures and was working almost waist deep in a pool in the limberlost. When on a wild grapevine swinging close to my face I noticed a big caterpillar placidly eating his way around a grape leaf. The caterpillar was over four inches long had no horn and was of a clear red wine color that was beautiful in the sunlight. I never before had seen a moth caterpillar that was red and I decided it must be rare. As there was a wild grapevine growing over the east side of the cabin and another on the windmill food of the right kind would be plentiful so I instantly decided to take the caterpillar home. It was of the specimens that I consider have almost thrust themselves upon me. When the pictures were finished and my camera carried from the swamp I returned with the clippers and cut off the vine and caterpillar to carry with me. On arrival I placed it in a large box with sand on the bottom and every few hours took out the wilted leaves put in fresh ones and sprinkled them to ensure Christmas and to give a touch of moisture to the atmosphere in the box that would make it seem more like the swab. My specimen was readily identified as Phyllum pellis pandoris of which I had no moth so I took extra care of it in the hope of a new picture in the spring. It had a little flat head that could be drawn inside the body like a turtle and on the sides were oblique touches of salmon something that appeared to be a place for a horn could be seen and a yellow tubercle was surrounded by a black line. It ate for three days and then began racing so frantically around the box. I thought confinement must be harmful so I gave it the freedom of the cabin warning all my family to look well to their footsteps. It stopped traveling after a day or two at a screen covering the music room window and there I found it one morning lying still a shriveled shrunken thing only half the former length so it was carefully picked up and thrown away. Of course the caterpillar was in the process of changing into the pupa and if I had known enough to lay it on the sand in my box and wait a few days without doubt a fine pupa would have emerged from that shrunken skin from which in the spring I could have secured an exquisite moth with shades of olive green flushed with pink. The thought of it makes me want to hide my head. It was six years before I found a living moth or saw another caterpillar of that species. A few days later while watching with a camera focused on the nest of a blackbird and Mrs. Corson's woods east of town Raymond who was assisting me. Crept to my side and asked if it would do any harm for him to go specimen hunting. The long waits would set cameras were extremely tedious to the restless spirits of the boy and the birds were quite tame. The light was under a cloud and the woods were so deep that after he had gone a few rods he was from sight and under cover. Besides it was great hunting ground so I gladly told him to go. The place was almost virgin much of it impassable and fully half of it was under water that lay in deep murky pools throughout the summer. In the heat of late June everything was steaming. Insect life of all kinds was swarming. Not far away I could hear sounds of trouble between the crow and hawk tribes and overhead a pair of black vultures whose young lay and a big stump in the interior were searching for signs of food. If ever there was a likely place for specimens it was here. Raymond was an expert at locating them and fearless to foolhardiness. He had been gone only a short time when I heard a cry and I knew it must mean something in his opinion of more importance than black birds. I answered coming and hastily winding the long hose I started in the direction Raymond had taken calling occasionally to make sure I was going the right way. When I found him the boy was standing beside a stat weed hat in hand intently watching something. As I leaned forward I saw that it was a hypochryo that had just emerged from the cocoon and as yet was resting with wings untried. It differed so widely from my moth of a few days before I knew it must be a male. This was only three-fourths as large as mine but infinitely surpassed it in beauty. Its front wings were orange-yellow flushed with red-purple at the base and had a small irregular brown spot near the costa. Contrary to all precedent the underside of these wings were the most beautiful and bore the decorations that in all previous experience with moths had been on the upper surface faintly showing on the under. For instance this irregular brown marking on the upper side proved to be a good-sized black spot with white dot in the middle on the under and there was a curved line of red-purple from the apex of the wing sloping to the lower edge nearly half an inch from the margin. The space from this line to the base of the wing was covered with red-purple down. The back wings were similar to the females only of a stronger color and more distinct markings. The eye spot and lining appeared as if they had been tinted with strong fresh paint while the edges of the wings lying beside the abdomen had the long silken hairs of a pure beautiful red their entire length. A few rods away men were plowing in the adjoining corn field and I remembered that the caterpillar of this moth liked to feed on corn blades and last summer undoubtedly lived in that very field. When I studied E.O. History in my moth books I learned these caterpillars ate willow, wild cherry, hickory, plum, oak, sassafras, ash, and poplar. The caterpillar was green more like the spiny butterfly caterpillars than any moth one I know. It had brown and white bands, brown patches, and was covered with tufts of stiff, upstanding spines that pierced like sharp needles. This was not because the caterpillar tried to hurt you but because the spines were on it and so arranged that if pressed against an acid secretion sprang from their base. This spread over the flesh the spines touched stinging for an hour like smartweed or nettles. When I identified this caterpillar in my books it came to me that I had known and experienced its touch but it did not forcibly impress me until that instant that I knew it best of all and that it was my childhood enemy of the corn. Its habit was to feed on the young blades and cling to them with all its might. If I was playing Indian among the rose or hunting an ear with especially long fine silk for a make-believe doll or helping the cook select ears of Jersey sweet to boil for dinner and accidentally brushed one of these caterpillars with cheek or hand I felt its burning sting long afterward. So I disliked those caterpillars. For I always had played among the corn. Untold miles I have ridden the plough horses across the spring fields where mellow mold rolled back from the shining shares and the perfumed air made me feel so near flying that all I seemed to need was a high start to be able to sail with the sentinel Blackbird that perched on the big oak and with one sharp to check warned his feeding flock surely and truly whether a passing man carried a gun or a hoe. Then came the planting when bare feet loved the cool earth and trotted over untold miles while little fingers carefully counted out seven grains from the store carried in my apron skirt as I chanted one for the Blackbird one for the crow one for the cut worm and four to grow. Then father covered them to the right depth and stamped each hill with the flat of the hoe while we talked of golden cornbread and slices of mush fried to a crisp brown that cook would make in the fall. We had to plant enough more to feed all the horses cattle, pigs, turkeys, geese, and chickens during the long winter even if the sun grew uncomfortably warm and the dinner bell was slow about ringing. Then there were the Indian days in the field when a fallen eagle feather stuck in a braid and some pokeberry juice on the face transformed me into an Indian bigfoot and I fled down green aisles of the corn before the wrath of the mighty Adam Poe. At times bigfoot grew tired fleeing and said so in remarkably distinct English and then to keep the game going my sister Ada who played Adam Poe had to turn into the fleeing or be tomahawked with a stick. While the milk was in the ears they were delicious steamed over salted water or better yet roasted before coals at the front of the cooking stove and eaten with butter and salt. If you have missed the flavor of it in that form really you have never known corn. Next came the cutting days. These were after all the caterpillars had climbed down and traveled across the fence to spin their cocoons among the leaves of the woods as if some instinct warned them that they would be plowed up too early to emerge if they remained in the field. The boys spent four hills lashed the tassels together for a foundation and then with one sweep of their knives they cut a hill at a time and stacked it in large shocks that lined the field like rows of sentinels guarding the gold of pumpkin and squash lying all around. While the shocks were drying the squirrels, crows, and quail took possession and fattened their sides against snow time. Then the gathering days of October they were the best days of all. Like a bloom-outlined vegetable bed the golden rod and iron wart and gaudy border filled the fence corners of the big fields a misty haze hung in the air because the Indians were burning the prairies to round up game for winter. The culling of the crows the chatter of blackbirds and the piping bobwhites seemed so close and so natural out there. While the crowing cocks of the barnyard seemed miles away and slightly unreal grown up and important I sat on a board laid across the wagon bed and guided the team of matched grays between the rows of shocks and around the pie timber as my brother Leander called the pumpkins while father and the boys opened the shocks and hussed the ears. How the squirrels scampered to the woods into the business of storing away the hickory notes that we could hear rattling down every frosty morning. We hurried with the corn because as soon as the last shock was in we might take the horses, wagon, and our dinner and go all day to the woods where we gathered our winter store of nuts. Leander would take a gun along and shoot one of those saucy squirrels for the little sick mother. Last came the November night when the cold had shut us in. Then selected ears that had been dried in the garret were brought down white for rival and to roll things in to fry and yellow for cornbread and mush. A tub full of each was shelled and sacked to carry to the mill the following day. I sat on the floor while father and the boys worked, listening to their talk as they built corn cob castles so high they toppled from their many stories. Sometimes father made corn stock fiddles that would play a real tune. Oh, the pity of it, that every little child cannot grow, live, learn, and love among the corn. For the caterpillars never stopped the fun. Even the years when they were the most numerous. The eggs laid by my female never hatched, so I do not know this caterpillar in its early stages from experience, but I had enough experience with it in my early stages that I do not care if I never raise one. No doubt it attains maturity by the same series of mulch as the others, and its life history is quite similar. The full-fed caterpillars spin among the leaves on the ground, and with their spines in mind, I would much prefer finding a cocoon and producing a moth from that stage of its evolution. The following season I had the good fortune to secure a male and female EO at the same time, and by persistence induce them to pose for me on an apple branch. There was no trouble in securing the male as I desired him, with wings folded showing the spots, lining and flushing of color, but the female was a perverse little body, and though I tried patiently and repeatedly, she would not lower her wings full width. She climbed around with them three-fourths spread, producing the most beautiful effect of life, but failing to display her striking markings. This is the one disadvantage in photographing moths from life. You secure lifelike effects, but sometimes you are forced to sacrifice their wonderful decorations. End of Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Of Moths of the Limberlost This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain, for more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. There are no moths so common with us as these. For throughout their season, at any time one is wanted, it is sure to be found either on the sweetbriar clamoring over the back wall, among the morning glories on one side, the wisteria and wild grape on the other, or in the shade of the wild clematis in front. On very sunny days they leave the shelter of the vines and rest on the logs of the cabin, close the roof of the verandas. Clinging there they appear like large gray flies, for they are of peculiar shape, and the front wings completely cover the back when in repose. A third or a half of the back wings show as they are lifted to balance the moss when walking over vines and uncertain footing. They are quite conspicuous on our cabin, because it is built of the Red Cedar of Wisconsin. Word of the timber used by our grandfathers, these moths with folded wings would be almost indistinguishable from their surroundings. Few moths can boast greater beauty. The largest specimen of the sweetheart that homes with us would measure three and one-half inches if it would spread its wings full width as do the moths of other species. No moth is more difficult to describe, because of the delicate blending of so many intangible shades. The front wings are a pale brownish gray, with irregular markings of tan and dark splotches outlined with fine deep brown lines. The edges are fluted and escaloped, each raised place being touched with a small spot of tan, and above it a narrow escaloped line of brown. The back wings are bright red, crossed by a circular band of brownish black, three-fourths of an inch from the base, a secondary wider band of the same, and edged with pale yellow. There is no greater surprise in store for a student of moths than to locate a first catechala amatrix and see the softly blended gray front wings suddenly lift and the vivid red of the back ones flash out. The undersides of the front wings are a warm, creamy tan, crossed by wide bands of dark brown and gray brown, ending in a delicate gray mist at the edges. The back wings are the same tan shade, with red next the abdomen, and crossed by brown bands of deeper shade than the forewings. The shoulders are covered with long, silky hair like the front wings. This is so delicate that it becomes detached at the slightest touch of vine or leaf. The abdomen is slightly lighter in color on top and a creamy tan beneath. The legs are gray and the feet to the first joint tan crossed by faint lines of brown. The head is small with big prominent eyes that see better by day than most night moths. For catechala takes precipitate flight at the mirror's shadow. The antennae are long, delicate and thread-like and must be broken very easily in the flight of the moth. It is nothing unusual to see them with one antenna shorter than the other, half or entirely gone, and a perfect specimen with both antennae and all the hair on its shoulders is rare. They have a long tongue that uncoils like the nita and cilius, so they are feeders, but not of day, for they never take flight until evening except when disturbed. The male is smaller than the female, his forewings deeply flushed with darker color and the back brighter red with more black in the bands. Neogama, another member of this family, is a degree smaller than Amatrix, but of the same shape. The forewings are covered with broken lines of different colors, the groundwork gray with gold flushings, the lines and dots of the border very like the sweethearts. The back wings are pure gold, almost reddish, with dark brownish-black bands and yellow borders. The top of the abdomen is a gray-gold color, underneath the markings are nearly the same as Amatrix, but a gold flush suffuses the moth. There are numbers of these catecholamos running the color scheme of yellow, from pale chrome to umber, many shade from light pink through the reds to a dark blood color. Then there is a smaller number having brown back wings and with others they are white. The only way I know to photograph them is to focus on some favorable spot, mark the place your plate covers in length and width, and then do your best to coax your subjects in range. If they can be persuaded to walk, they will open their wings to a greater or less degree. A reproduction would do them no sort of justice, unless the markings of the back wings show. It is on account of the gorgeous colorings of these that scientists call the species afterwings. One would suppose that with so many specimens of this beautiful species living with us and swarming the swamp close by, I would be prepared to give their complete life history. But I know less concerning them than any other moths common with us, and all the scientific works I can buy afford little help. Professional Lepidopterists dismiss them with few words. One would-be authority disposes of the species with half a dozen lines. You can find at least a hundred catechala reproduced from museum specimens and their habitat given in the Holland Moth Book. But I fail to learn what I most desire to know, what these moths feed on, how late they live, how their eggs appear, where they are deposited, which is their caterpillar, what does it eat, and where and how does it pupate. Packard, in his Guide to the Study of Insects, offers in substance this much help upon the subject. The genus is beautiful, the species numerous, of large size, often three-inch expansion, and in repose form a flat roof. The larvae is elongate, slender, flatten beneath and spotted with black, attenuated at each end with fleshy filaments on the sides above the legs, while the head is flattened and rather forked above. It feeds on trees and rests attached to the trunks. The pupa is covered with a bluish efflorescence, enclosed in a slight cocoon of silk, spun amongst leaves or bark. This will tend to bear out my contention that scientific works are not the help they should be to the nature lover. Heaven save me from starting to locate catechala moths, eggs, caterpillars, or pupae on the strength of this information. I might find moths by accident, nothing on the subject of eggs, neither color of body, characteristics, nor food, to help identify caterpillars. For the statement, it feeds on trees, cannot be considered exactly illuminating when we remember the world full of trees on which caterpillars are feeding, and should one search for cocoon in case pupae among the leaves and bark of treetops or earth. The most reliable information I have had concerning these moths of which I know least comes from Professor Rowley. He is the only Lepidopterist of four to whom I applied, who could tell me any of the things I am interested in knowing. He writes in Substance, The bride and sweetheart are common northern species, as are most of the other members of the group. The amatrix with its red wings is called the sweetheart, because amore means love, and red is love's own color. The caterpillar feeds on willow. The catechala of the yellow afterwings is commonly called the bride, because neogama, its scientific name, means recently wedded. Its caterpillar feeds on walnut leaves. If you will examine the underside of the body of a catechala moth, you will find near the junction of the thorax and abdomen, on either side, large open organs, reminding one of the ears of a grasshopper, which are on the sides of the first abdominal segment. Examine the body's asphinges and other moths for these same openings. They appear to be ears. Catechala moths feed on juices and live most of the summer season. Numbers of them have been found sipping sap at a tree freshly cut, and you know we take them at night with bait. New Orleans sugar, and cider or sugar and stale beer are the usual baits. This concoction is put on the bodies of trees with a brush. Between 8 and 10 o'clock at night. During good catechala years, great numbers of these moths may be taken as they feed at the sweet syrup. So it is proof that their food is sap, honeydew, and other sugary liquids. Mr. George Dodge assures me that he has taken catechala abruviatella at milkweed blooms about 8 o'clock of early June evenings. Other species also feed on flowers. You will notice that in his remarks about the open organs on the side of the abdominal segment, Professor Raleigh may have settled the ear question. I am going to keep sharp watch for these organs hereafter. I am led to wonder if one could close them in some way and detect any difference in the moth's sense of hearing after having done so. All of us are enthusiasts about these moths with their modest four wings and the gaudy brilliance of the wonderful afterwings that are so bright as to give a common name to the species. We are studying them constantly, and hope soon to learn all we care to know of any moth. For our experience with them is quite limited when compared with other visitors from the swamp. But think of the poetry of adding to the long list of birds, animals, and insects that temporarily reside with us, a sweetheart and a bride. Please visit LibriVox.org. Moths of the Limberlost by Jean Stratton Porter Chapter 10 The Giant Gammon, Telia Polyphemus Time cannot be used to tell of making the acquaintance of this moth until Halwell Worth knowing it has been explained. That it is a big bird-like fellow with a six-inch sweep of wing is indicated by the fact that it is named in honor of the giant polyphemus. Telia means the end, and as scientists fail to explain the appropriateness of this, I am at liberty to indulge a theory of my own. Nature made this handsome moth last, and as it was the end, surpassed herself as a finishing touch on creatures that are, no doubt, her frailest and most exquisite creation. Polyphemus is rich in shadings of many subdued colors that so blend and contrast as to give it no superior in the family of short-lived lovers of moonlight. Its front wings are a complicated study of many colors, for some of which it would be difficult to find a name. Really, it is the one moth that must be seen and studied in minutest detail to gain an idea of its beauty. The nearest I can come to the general groundwork of the wing is a rich brown-yellow. The casta is gray, this color spreading in a widening line from the base of the wing to more than a quarter of an inch at the tip, and closely peppered with black. At the base, the wing is covered with silky yellow-brown hairs. As if to outline the extent of these, comes a line of pinkish-white, and then one of rich golden-brown, shading into the prevailing color. Close to the middle of the length of the wing and half an inch from the casta is a transparent spot like ice and glass, so clear that a fine print can be read through it. This spot is outlined with a canary yellow band, and that with a narrow but sharp circle of black. Then comes a cloud-like rift of golden-brown, drifting from the casta across the wing, but growing fainter until it merges with the general color near the abdomen. Then half an inch of the yellow-brown color is peppered with black, similar to the casta. This grows darker until it terminates in a quarter of an inch wide band of almost gray-black, crossing the wing. Next this comes a narrower band of pinkish-white. The edge begins with a quarter of an inch band of clear yellow-brown and widens as the wing curves until it is half an inch at the point. It is the lightest color of rotten apple. The only thing I ever have seen in nature exactly similar was the paleless shade of mother found in barrels of vinegar. A very light liver color comes close to it. On the extreme tip is a velvety oval half black and half pale pink. The back wings are the nearest trifle stronger in this yellow-brown color, and with the exception of the brown rift are the same in marking, only that all color similar to the brown is a shade deeper. The pièce de résistance of the back wing is the eye spot. The transparent oval is a little smaller. The canary band is wider and of a stronger color. The black band around the lower half is yet wider and of long velvety hairs. It extends in an oval above the transparent spot, fully half an inch, then shades through peacock blue and gray to the hair-like black line in closing the spot. The undersides of the wings are pure tan, clouded and lined with shades of rich brown. The transparent spots are outlined with canary and show a faint line drawn across the middle the long way. The face is a tiny brown patch with small eyes for the size of the moth, and large brown and tenny shaped like those of sucropia. The gray band of the costa crosses the top of the head. The shoulders are covered with pinkish-yellow brown hair. The top and sides of the abdomen are a lighter shade of the same. The underside of the abdomen is darker brown and the legs brown with very dark brown feet. These descriptions do the harmonizing colors of the moth no sort of justice, but are the best I can offer. In some lights it is a rich yellow brown, and again a pink flush pervades the body and wings. My first experience with the living polyphemus, I know Tillia is shorter, but it is not suitable while a giant among moths it is, so that name is best. Occurred several years ago, a man brought me a living polyphemus battered to rags and fringes, and tenny broken and three feet missing. He had found a woman trying to beat the clinging creature loose from a door screen with a towel before the wings were hardened for flight, and he rescued the remains. There was nothing to say. Some people are not happy unless they are killing helpless harmless creatures, and there was nothing to do. The moth was useless for a study, while its broken and tenny set it crazy, and it shook and trembled continually, going out without depositing any eggs. One thing I did get was a complete identification, and another to attribute the experience to Mrs. Comstock and a girl of the limberlost, when I wished to make her do something particularly disagreeable. In learning a moth I study its eggs, caterpillars, and cocoons, so that fall Raymond and I began searching for polyphemus. I found our first cocoon hanging by a few threads of silk, from a willow twig overhanging a stream in the limberlost. A queer little cocoon it was. The body was tan color, and thickly covered with a white sprinkling like lime. A small thorn tree close to the cabin yielded Raymond two more, but these were darker in color, each was spun inside three thorn leaves so firmly that it appeared triangular in shape. The winds had blown the cocoons against the limbs and worn away the projecting edges of the leaves, but the mid-ribs and veins showed plainly. In all, we had half a dozen of these cocoons gathered from different parts of the swamp, and we found them dangling from a twig of willow or hawthorn by a small piece of spinning. During the winter these occupied the place of state in the conservatory, and were watched every day. They were kept in the coolest spot, but where the sun reached them at times. Always in watering the flowers the hose was turned on them, because they would have been in the rain if they had been left out of doors, and conditions should be kept as natural as possible. Close time for emergence I became very uneasy, because the conservatory was warm, so I moved them to my sleeping room, the coolest in the cabin, where a fireplace, two big windows and an outside door always open, provide natural atmospheric conditions, and where I would be sure to see them every day. I hung the twigs over a twine stretched from my dresser to the windowsill. One day in May when the trees were in full bloom, I was working on a tulip bed under an apple tree in the garden. When Molly Cotton said to me, How did you get that cocoon in your room wet? I did not water any of the cocoons, I answered. I have done no sprinkling today. If they are wet it has come from the inside. Molly Cotton dropped her trowel. One of them was damp on the top before lunch, she cried. I just now thought of it. The moths are coming. She started on her run, and I followed, but stopped to wash my hands, so she reached them first, and her shout told the news. Hurry! she cried. Hurry! one is out, and another is just struggling through. Quickly as I could I stood beside her. One polyphemous female, a giant indeed, was clinging to a twig with her feet, and from her shoulders depended her wings, wet and wrinkled as they had been cramped in the pupa-case. Even then she had expanded in body, until it seemed impossible that she had emerged from the opening of the vacant cocoon. The second one had its front feet and head out, and was struggling frantically to free its shoulders. A fresh wet spot on the top of another cocoon, where the moth had ejected the acid with which it is provided, to soften the spinning, was heaving with the pushing head of the third. Molly Cotton was in sympathy with the imprisoned moths. Why don't you get something sharp and split the cocoon so they can get out? She demanded. Just look at them struggle. They will kill themselves. Then I explained to her that if we wanted big, perfect moths, we must not touch them. That the evolution of species was complete to the minutest detail. The providence that supplied the acid required that the moths make the fight necessary to emerge alone, in order to strengthen them so they would be able to walk and cling with their feet, while the wings drooped and dried properly. That if I cut a case and took out a moth with no effort on its part, it would be too weak to walk or bear its weight, and so would fall to the floor. Then, because of not being in the right position, the wings would harden half-spread or have broken membranes and never develop fully. So instead of doing a kindness, I really would work ruination. Oh, I see! cried the wondering girl, and her eyes were large enough to have seen anything while her brain was racing. If you want to awaken a child and teach it to think, give object lessons such as these in natural history and study with it, so that every miraculous point is grasped when reached. We left the emerging moths long enough to set up a camera outside and focus on an old tree. Then we hurried back, almost praying that the second moth would be a male, and dry soon enough that the two could be pictured together before the first one would be strong enough to fly. The following three hours were spent with them, and every minute enjoyed to the fullest. The first to emerge was dry, and pumping her wings to strengthen them for flight. The second was in condition to pose, but a disappointment for it was another female. The third was out, and by its smaller size, brighter markings and broad and tenny, we knew it was a male. His antlers were much wider than those of the first two, and where their markings were pink, his were so vivid as to be almost red, and he was very furry. He had, in fact, almost twice as much long hair as the others, so he undoubtedly was a male. But he was not sufficiently advanced to pose with the females, and I was in doubt as to the wisest course to pursue. How we him up, suggested Molly Cotton, tie his string across the window and hang him in the sunshine. I'll bring a fan and stir the air gently. This plan seemed feasible, and when the twine was ready I lifted his twig to place it in the new location. The instant I touched his resting place and lifted its weight from the twine, both females began ejecting a creamy liquid. They ruined the frescoing behind them, as my first acropia soiled the lace curtain when I was smaller than Molly Cotton at that time. We tacked a paper against the wall to prevent further damage. A point to remember in moth culture is to be ready for this occurrence before they emerge if you do not want stained frescoing, floors, and hangings. In the sunshine and fresh air the male began to dry rapidly, and no doubt he understood the presence of his kind, for he was much more active than the females. He climbed the twig, walked the twine, body pendant, and was so energetic that we thought we dared not trust him out of doors. But when at every effort to walk or fly he only attempted to reach the females, we concluded that he would not take wing if at liberty. By this time he was fully developed and so perfect he would serve for a study. I polished the lenses, focused anew on the tree, marked the limits of exposure, inserted a plate, and had everything ready. Then I brought out the female, Molly Cotton walking beside me, hovering her with a net. The moth climbed from the twig to the tree and clung there. Her wings spread flat, at time setting them quivering in a fluttering motion or raising them. While Molly Cotton guarded her I returned for the male, and found him with wings so hardened that he could raise them above his back and lower them full width. I wanted my study to dignify the term, so I planned to show the underwings of one moth, the upper of the other. Then the small antennae and large abdomen of the female were of interest. I also thought it would be best to secure the male with wings wide spread if possible, because his color was stronger, his markings more pronounced. So I helped the female on a small branch facing the trunk of the tree, and she rested with raised wings as I fervently hoped she would. The male I placed on the trunk, and with wide wings he immediately started toward the female, while she advanced in his direction. This showed his large antennae in all markings and points especially noteworthy, being good composition as well, for its centered interest. But there was one objection. It gave the male the conspicuous place, and made him appear the larger because of his nearness to the lens and his wing spread, while as a matter of fact the female had almost an inch more sweep than he, and was bigger at every point, save the antennae. The light was full and strong, the lens the best money could buy, the plate seven by nine inches. By this time long practice had made me rather expert in using my cameras. When the advancing pair were fully inside my circle of focus I made the first exposure. Then I told Molly Cotton to keep them as nearly as possible where they were, while I took one breathless peep at the ground glass. Talk about exciting work. No better focus could be had on them, so I shoved in another plate with all speed and made a second exposure, which was no better than the first. Had there been time I would have made a third to be sure, for plates are no object when a study is at all worthwhile. As a rule each succeeding effort enables you to make some small change for the better, and you must figure on always having enough to lose one through a defective plate or ill luck in development, and yet end with a picture that will serve your purpose. Then we closed the ventilators and released the moss in the conservatory. The female I placed on a lemon tree in a shady spot, and the male at the extreme far side to see how soon he would find her. We had supposed it would be dark, but they were well acquainted by dusk. The next morning she was dotting eggs over the plants. The other cocoons produced mostly female living moss, save one that was lost in emergence. I tried to help when it was too late, but cutting open the cocoon afterward proved the moth defective. The wings on one side were only about half size, and on the other little patches no larger than my thumbnail. The body was shrunken and weakly. At this time as I remember, sucropia eggs were the largest I had seen, but these were larger, the same shape and of a white color with a brown band. The moth dotted them on the upper and undersides of leaves, on sashes and flower pots, tubs and buckets. They turned brown as the days passed. The little caterpillars that emerged from them were reddish brown and a quarter of an inch long. I could not see my way to release a small army of two or three hundred of these among my plants, so when they emerged I held a leaf before fifty, that seemed liveliest, and transferred them to a big box. The remainder I placed with less ceremony over mulberry, elm, maple, wild cherry, grape, rose, apple, and pear around the cabin, and gave the ones kept in confinement the same diet. The leaves given them always were dipped in water to keep them fresh longer and furnish moisture for the feeders. They grew by a series of mults, like all the others I had raised or seen, and were full size in forty-eight days, but traveled a day or two before beginning the pupa stage of their existence. The caterpillars were big fellows, the segments deeply cut, the bodies yellow-green, with a few sparse scattering hairs, and on the edge of each segment, from a triple row of dots, a rose-tiny, sharp spine. Each side had a series of black touches, and the head could be drawn inside the thorax. They were the largest in circumference of any I had raised, but only a little over three inches long. I arranged both leaves and twigs in the boxes, but they spun among the leaves, and not dangling from twigs, as all the cocoons I had found outdoors were placed previous to that time. Since I have found them spun lengthwise of twigs in a brush heap, the cocoons of these I had raised were wider than those of the free caterpillars, and did not have the leaves fastened on the outside, but were woven in a nest of leaves fastened together by threads. Polyphemous moths are night-flyers, and do not feed. I have tried to tell how beautiful they are, with indifferent success, and they are common with me. Since I learned them I found their cocoons easiest to discover. Through the fall and winter, when riding on trains, I see them dangling from wayside thorn bushes. Once, while taking a walk with Raymond in late November, he located one on a thorn tree in a field beside the road, but he has the eyes of an Indian. These are the moss that city people can cultivate. For an Indianapolis in early December, I saw a fully one-half as many polyphemous cocoons on the trees as there were sucropia, and I could have gathered a bushel of them. They have emerged in perfection for me always, with one exception. Personally I have found more polyphemous than sucropia. These moss are the gamons of their family, and love the streets and lights at night. Under an arc light at Wabash, Indiana, I once picked up as beautiful a specimen of polyphemous as I ever saw, and the following day a friend told me that several had been captured the night before in the heart of town. Chapter 11 of Moss of the Limberlost This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Moss of the Limberlost by Jean Stratton Porter. Chapter 11 The Garden Fly, Proto-Parsy, Carolina Proto-Parsy, Carolina is a cousin of Cilius, and so nearly it's double that the caterpillars and moss must be seen together to be differentiated by amateurs. While it is doubtful if skilled scientists can always identify the pupa cases with certainty. Carolina is more common in the south, but it is frequent throughout the north. Its caterpillars eat the same food as Cilius and are the same size. They are a dull green while Cilius is shining, and during the succession of moths, they show slight variations in color. They pupate in a hole in the ground. The moss on close examination show quite a difference from Cilius. They are darker in color. The four wings lack the effect of being laid off in lines. The color is a mottling of almost black, darkest gray, lighter gray, brown and white. The back wings are crossed by wavy bands of brownish gray, black and tan color, and the yellow markings on the abdomen are larger. In repose, these moths fold the front wings over the back like large flies. In fact, in the south they are called the tobacco fly, and we of the north should add the tomato and potato fly. Because I thought such a picture would be of interest, I reproduced a pair, the male as he clung to a piece of pasteboard in the fly attitude. Cilius and Carolina caterpillars come the nearest being pests of those of any large moths, because they feed on tomato, potato and tobacco. But they also eat gymsome weed, ground cherry and several vines that are of no use to average folk. The Carolina moths come from their pupacases as featherweights step into the sparring. They feed partially by day, and their big eyes surely seem more than those of most other moths, that seem small and deep set in comparison. Their legs are long and not so hairy as is the rule. They have none of the blind, aimless, helpless appearance of moths that do not feed. They exercise violently in the pupacases before they burst the shields, and when they emerge their eyes glow and dilate. They step with firmness and assurance, as if they knew where they wanted to go and how to arrive. They are of direct, swift flight, and much experience and dexterity are required to take them on wing. Both my Carolina moths emerged in late afternoon, about four o'clock, near the time their kind take flight to hunt for food. The light was poor in the cabin, so I set up my camera and focused on a sweetbriar climbing over the back door. The newly emerged moth was traveling briskly in that first exercise it takes, while I arranged my camera. So by the time I was ready it had reached the place to rest quietly until its wings developed. Carolina climbed on my finger with all assurance, walked briskly from it to the roses, and clung there firmly. The wet wings dropped into position, and the sun dried them rapidly. I fell in love with my subject. He stepped around so jauntily in comparison with most moths. The picture he made while clinging to the roses during the first exposure was lovely. His slender, trim legs seemed to have three long joints and two short in the feet. In his sidewise position toward the lens, the abdomen showed silver-white beneath, silvery gray on the sides, and large patches of orange surrounded by black with touches of white on top. His wings were folded together on his back as they drooped, showing only the undersides, and on these the markings were more clearly defined than on top. In the sunlight the four pair were a warm tan gray, exquisitely lined and shaded. They were a little more than half covered by the back pair that folded over them. These were a darker gray, with tan and almost black shadings, and crossed by sharply zigzagging lines of black. The gray legs were banded by lines of white. The first pair clung to the stamens of the rose, the second to the petals, and the third stretched out and rested on a leaf. They were beautiful markings of very dark color and white on the thorax, head, and shoulders, and back wings next to the body. The big eyes, quite the largest of any moth I remember, reminded me of owl eyes in the light. The antennae, dark gray brown on top and white on the underside, turned back and drooped beside the costa, no doubt in the position they occupied in the pupa case. The location was so warm and the moth dried so rapidly that by the time two good studies were made of him in this position, he felt able to step to some leaves, and with no warning whatever, reversed his wings to the fly position, so that only the top side of their front pair showed. The color was very rich and beautiful, but so broken in small patches and lines as to be difficult to describe. With the reversal of the wings, the antennae flared a little higher, and the exercise of the sucking tube began. The moth would expose the whole length of the tube in a coil, which it would make larger and contract by turns, at times drawing it from sight. When it was uncoiled to farthest, a cleft in the face where it fitted could be seen. The next day my second Carolina case produced a beautiful female. The history of her emergence was exactly similar to that of the male. Her head, shoulders and abdomen seemed nearly twice the size of his, while her wings but a trifle if any larger. As these moths are feeders and live for weeks, I presume when the female has deposited her eggs the abdomen contracts and loses its weight so that she does not require the large wings of the females that only deposit their eggs and die. They are very heavy, and if forced to flight must have big wings to support them. I was so interested in this that I slightly chloroformed the female and made a study of the pair. The male was fully alive and alert, but they had not made it, and he would not take wing. He clung in his natural position, so that he resembled a big fly on the smooth surface of the sheet of corrugated paper on which I placed the female. His wings folded over each other. The abdomen and antennae were invisible, because they were laid flat on the costa of each wing. The female clung to the board in any position in which she was placed. Her tongue readily uncoiled, showing its extreme length, and curled around a pin. With a camel's hair brush I gently spread her wings to show how near they were the size of the males and how much larger her body was. Her four wings were a trifle lighter in color than the males, and not so broken with small markings. The back wings were very similar. Her antennae stood straight out from the head on each side of their own volition and differed from the males. It has been my observation that in repose, these moths fold the antennae as shown by the male. The position of the female was unnatural. In flight or when feeding, the antennae are raised, and used as a guide in finding food flowers. A moth with broken antennae seems dazed and helpless, and in great distress. I have learned by experience in handling moths that when I induce one to climb upon bark, branch, or flower for a study, they seldom place their wings as I want them. Often it takes long and patient coaxing, and they are sensitive to touch. If I try to force a four-wing with my fingers to secure a wider sweep, so that the markings of the back wings show, the moths resented by closing them closer than before, climbing to a different location, or often taking flight. But if I use a fine camel's hair brush that lacks the pulsation of circulation, and gently stroke the wing and sides of the abdomen, the moths seem to like the sensation and grow sleepy or hypnotized. By using the brush I never fail to get wing extension that will show markings, and at the same time the feet and body are in a natural position. After all is said there is to say, and done there is to do, the final summing up in judgment of any work on natural history will depend on whether it is true to nature. It is for this reason I often have waited for days and searched over untold miles to find the right location, even the exact leaf, twig, or branch on which a subject should be placed. I plead guilty to the use of an anesthetic in this chapter, only to show the tongue extension of Carolina, because it is the extremist with which I am acquainted, and to coaxing wide-wing sweep with the camel's hair brush, otherwise either the fact that my subjects are too close emergence ever to have taken flight or sex attraction alone holds them. If you do not discover love running through every line of this text and see it shining from the face of every study in painting, you do not read a right and your eyes need attention. Again and again to the protest of my family I have made answer. To work we love, we rise but times, and go to it with delight. From the middle of May to the end of June of the year I was most occupied with this book. My room was filled with cocoons and pupa cases. The encased moths I had reason to believe were on the point of appearing lay on a chair beside my bed or on a tray close my pillow. That month I did not average two hours of sleep in a night and had less in the daytime. I not only arose betimes, but at any time I heard a scratching and tugging moth working to enter the world, and when its head was out I was up and ready with notebook and camera. Day helped the matter but slightly. For any moth emerging in the night had to be provided a location and pictured before ten o'clock or it was not safe to take it outside. Then I had literally to fly to develop the plate, make my print, and secure exact color reproduction while the moth was fresh. For this is a point to remember in photographing a moth. A free living moth never raises its wings higher than a straight line from the bases crossing the top of the thorax. It requires expert and adept coaxing to get them horizontal with their bases. If you do, you show all markings required and preserve natural values, quite the most important things to be considered. I made a discovery with Carolina. Moths having digestive organs and that are feeders are susceptible to anesthetics in a far higher degree than those that do not feed. Many scientific workers confess to having poured full strength chloroform directly on non-feeders, mounted them as pin specimens, and later found them living, so that sensitive lipidopterists have abandoned its use for the cyanide or gasoline jar. I intended to give only a whiff of chloroform to this moth, just enough that she would allow her tongue to remain uncoiled until I could snap its fullest extent, but I could not revive her. The same amount would have had no effect whatever on a non-feeder. CHAPTER XII. BLOODY NOSE OF SUNSHINE HILL. HE MARIS THISBEE. John Brown lives a mile north of our village in the little hamlet of Salon. Like his illustrious predecessor of the same name, he is willing to do something for other people. Mr. Brown owns a large farm that for a long distance borders the Wabash River where it is at its best, and always the cameras and I have the freedom of his premises. On the east side of the village about half its length swings a big gate that opens into a long country lane. It leads between fields of wheat and corn to a stretch of woods pasture lying on a hillside that ends at the river. This covers many acres. Most of the trees have been cut. The land rises gradually to a crest that is crowned by a straggling old snake fence, velvety black in places, gray with lint in others, and liberally decorated its entire length with lichens, in every shade of gray and green. Its corners are filled with wildflowers, ferns, gooseberries, raspberries, black and red haw, pawpaw, wild grapevines, and trees of all varieties. Across the fence a sumac-covered embankment falls precipitately to the Wabash, where it sweeps around a great curve at Horseshoe Bend. The bed is stone and gravel, the water flows shallow and pure in the sunlight, and mallows and willows fringe the banks. Beside this stretch of river most of one summer was spent because there were two broods of cardinals whose acquaintance I was cultivating raised in those sumacs. The place was very secluded, as the water was not deep enough for fishing or swimming. On days when the cardinals were contrary, or to do the bird's justice, when they had experiences with an owl the previous night, or with a hawk in the morning, and were restless or unduly excited, much gris for my camera could be found on the river banks. These were the most beautiful anywhere in my locality. The hum of busy life was incessant. From the top of the giant sycamore in Rainbow Bottom, the father of the cardinal flock hourly challenged all creation to contest his right to one particular sumac. The cardinals were the attractions there. Across the fence where the hill sloped the length of the pasture to the lane, lures were many an imperative. Despite a few large trees, compelling right to life by their majesty, that hillside was open pasture, where the sunshine streamed all day long. Wild roses clamored over stumps of fallen monarchs, and scrub oak sheltered resting sheep. As it swept to the crest the hillside was thickly dotted with mulin, its pale yellow-green leaves spreading over the grass, and its spiral of canary-colored bloom stiffly upstanding. There were thistles, the big rank richly growing kind, that browsing cattle and sheep circled widely. Very beautiful were these frosted thistles, with their large widespread base leaves, each spine needle-tipped, their uplifted heads of delicate purple bloom, and their floating globes of silken down with a seed in their hearts. No wonder artists have painted them, decorators conventionalized them, even potters could not pass by their artistic merit, for I remembered that in a china-closet at home there were bellicups molded in the shape of a thistle-head. Experience had taught me how to appreciate this plant. There was was a chiwik in the Stanley Woods that brought off a brood of four under the safe shelter of a rank thistle-leaf in the midst of trampling herds of cattle driven wild by flies. There was a ground sparrow near the hail sand-pit, covered by a base leaf of another thistle, and beneath a third on Bob's lease I had made a study of an exquisite nest. Protection from the rank leaves was not all the birds sought of these plants, for gold finches were darting around inviting all creation to see me, as they gathered the silken down for a nest-lining. Over the sweetly perfumed purple heads the hummingbirds held high carnival on Sunshine Hillside all the day. The honey and bumblebees fled at the bird's approach, but what were these others, numerous everywhere, that clung to the blooms, greedily thrusting their red noses between the petals and giving place to nothing else? For days as I passed among them I thought them huge bees. The bright coloring of their golden olive green and red wine-striped bodies had attracted me in passing. Then one of them approached a thistle-head opposite me in such a way its antennae and long tongue it thrust into the bloom could be seen. That proved it was not a bee, and punishment did not await anyone who touched it. There were so many that with one sweep of the net two were captured. They were examined to my satisfaction and astonishment. They were moss. Truly moss, beading in the brilliant sunshine all the day, bearing a degree of light and heat I never had known any other moss to endure. Talk about exquisite creatures. These little day moss, not much larger than the largest bumblebees, had some of their gaudious competitors of moonlight and darkness outdone. The head was small and pointed, with big eyes, a long tongue, clubbed antennae, and a blood-red nose. The thorax above was covered with long, silky olive green hair. The top of the abdomen had half an inch band of warm tan color, then a quarter of an inch band of velvety red wine, then a band near the olive of the shoulders. The males had claspers covered with small red wine feathers, tan-tipped. The thorax was cream-colored below, and the underside of the abdomen red wine crossed with cream-colored lines at each segment. The four wings had the usual long, silky hairs. They were of olive green shading into red at the base. The costa was red, and an escaloped band of red bordered them. The intervening space was transparent like thinnest icing glass, and crossed with fine red veins. The back wings were the same, only the hairs at the base were lighter red, and the band at the edge deeper in color. The head of the male seemed sharper, the shoulders stronger olive, the wings more pointed at the apex, where the females were a little rounded. The top of the abdomen had the middle band of such strong red that it threw the same color over the bands above and below it, giving to the whole moth a strong red appearance when on wing. They were so fascinating, the birds were forgotten, and the hillside hunted for them until a pair were secured to carry home for identification, before the whistle of the cardinal from Rainbow Bottom rang so sharply that I remembered this was the day I had hoped to secure his likeness, and here I was allowing a little red-nosed moth so to thrust itself upon my attention, that my cameras were not even set up and focused on the sumac. This tiny, sunshine moth, he Maris Thisby was easy of identification, and its whole-life history before me on the hillside. I was too busy with the birds to raise many caterpillars, so reference to several books taught me that they all agreed on the main points of he Maris' history. He Maris means Bloody Nose. Bloody Nose, on account of the red first noticed on the face, though some writers called them clear wings, because of the transparent spaces on the wings. Certainly clear wings is a most appropriate and poetic name for this moth. Fistidious people will undoubtedly prefer it for common usage. For myself, I always think of the delicate, gaudy little creature greedily thrusting its blood-red nose into the purple fizzle blooms, so to my thought it returns as Bloody Nose. The pairs mate early after emerging and lay about two hundred small eggs to the female, from which the caterpillars soon hatch, and begin their succession of molts. One rider gave black haw and snowball as their favorite foods, and the length of the caterpillar went full-grown nearly two inches. They are either a light brown with yellow markings, or green with yellow. All of them have white granules on the body, and a blue-black horn with a yellow base. They spin among the leaves on the ground, and the pupa, while small, is shaped like regalus, except that it has a sharper point at each end, and more prominent wing shields. It has no raised tongue case, although it belongs to the family of long tongues. On learning all I could acquire by experience with these moths, and what the books had to teach, I became their warm admirer. One sunny morning climbing the hill on the way to the cardinals, with fresh plates in my cameras, and high hopes in my heart, I passed an unusually large, fine thistle, and half a dozen this bemos, fluttering over it as if nearly crates with fragrance, or honey they were sipping. Come here, come here, come here! intoned the cardinal, from the sycamore of rainbow bottom. Just you wait a second, old fellow, I heard myself answering. Scarcely realizing what I was doing, the tripod was set up, the best camera taken out, and focused on that thistle head. The moths paid no attention to bees, butterflies, or hummingbirds visiting the thistle. But this was too formidable, and by the time the choice's heads were in focus, all the little red-fellows had darted to another plant. If the camera was moved there, they would change again, so I sat in the shade of a clump of paw paws to wait and see if they would not grow accustomed to it. They kept me longer than I had expected, and the chances are I would have answered the cardinal's call and gone to the river, had it not been for the interest found in watching a beautiful gray squirrel that homed in an ivy-covered stump in the pasture. He seemed to have much business at the fence on the hilltop, and raced back and forth to it repeatedly. He carried something I could not always tell what, but at times it was green haws. Once he came with no food, and at such a headlong run that he almost turned somersaults as he scampered up the tree. For a long time he was quiet, then he cautiously peeped out. After a while he ventured to the ground, raced to a dead stump, and, sitting on it, barked and scolded with all his might. Then he darted home again. When he had repeated this performance several times, the idea became apparent. There was some danger to be defied in Rainbow Bottom, but not a sound must be made from his home. The bark of a dog hurried me to the fence in time to see some hunters passing in the bottom, but I thanked Mercy, they were on the opposite side of the river, and it was not probable they would wade, so my birds would not be disturbed. When the squirrel felt that he must bark and chatter or burst with tense emotions, he discreetly left his mate and nest. I did some serious thinking on the instinct question. He might choose a hollow log for his home by instinct, or eat certain foods because hunger urged him, but could instinct teach him not to make a sound where his young family lay? Without a doubt for this same reason, the cardinal sang from every tree in Bush around Horseshoe Bend, save the sumac where his mate hovered their young. The matter presented itself in this way. The squirrel has feet and he runs with them. He has teeth and he eats with them. He has lungs and he breathes with them. Every organ of his interior has a purpose and is used to fulfill it. His big prominent eyes come from long residents and dark hollows. His bushy tail helps him in long jumps from tree to tree. Every part of his anatomy is created, designed, and used to serve some purpose, save only his brain, the most complex and complicated part of him. Its only use and purpose is to form one small tidbit for the palette of the Epicure. Like Sir Francis, who preached a sermon to the birds, I found me delivering myself of a lecture to the squirrel's birds and moths of Sunshine Hill. The final summing up was that the squirrel used his feet, teeth, eyes, and tail that could be seen easily, and by his actions it could be seen just as clearly that he used his brain also. There was not a thysbee in front of the lens, so picking up a long cudgel I always carry a field and going quietly to surrounding thistles I jarred them lightly with it and began rounding up the humerus family in the direction of the camera. The trick was a complete success. Soon I had an exposure on two. After they had faced the camera once and experienced no injury, like the birds they accepted it as part of the landscape. The work was so fascinating in the pictures on the ground glass so worthwhile that before I realized what I was doing, half a dozen large plates were gone and for this reason work on the cardinals that day ended at noon. This is why I feel that at times in bird work the moths literally thrust themselves upon me. CHAPTER XIII. THE MODEST MOTH. TRIPTAGON MODESTA. Of course this moth was named Modesta because of modest colouring. It reminds me of a dove being one of my prime favourites. On wing it is suggestive of Polyphemus, but its colours are lighter and softer. Great beauty that Polyphemus is, Modesta equals it. Modesta belongs to the genus Tryptagon, species Modesta, hence the common name, the Modest Moth. I am told that in the east this moth is of stronger colouring than in the central and western states. I do not know about the centre and west, but I do know that only as far east as Indiana, Modesta is of a more delicate colouring than it is described by scientists of New York and Pennsylvania, and of course, as in almost every case, the female is not so strongly coloured as the male. I can class the Modest Moth and its caterpillar among those I know, but my acquaintance with it is more limited than with almost any other. My first introduction came when I found a caterpillar of striking appearance on water sprouts growing around a poplar stump in a stretch of trees beside the Wabash. I carried it home with the supply of leaves for diet, but as a matter of luck it had finished eating and was ready to pupate. I write of this as good luck, because the poplar tree is almost extinct in my location. I know of only one in the fields, those beside the river, and a few used for ornamental shade trees. They are so scarce I would have had trouble to provide the caterpillar with natural food, so I was glad that it was ready to pupate, one found. Anyone can identify this caterpillar easily, as it is most peculiar. There is a purpleish-pink cast on the head and mouth of the full-grown caterpillar, and purpleish-red around the props. The body is a very light blue-green, faintly tinge with white and yellow in places. On the sides are white obliques, or white chitted with pink, and at the base of these a small oval marking. There is a small, short horn on the head. But the distinguishing mark is a mass of little white granules scattered all over the caterpillar. It is so peppered with these, that failure to identify it is impossible. These caterpillars pupate in the ground. I knew that, but this was before I had learned that the caterpillar worked out a hole in the ground, and the pupa case only touched the earth upon which it lay. So when my modesta caterpillar ceased crawling, lay quietly, turned dark, shrank one-half in length, and finally burst the dead skin, and emerged in a shining dark brown pupa case two inches long. I got in my work. I did well. A spade full of garden soil was thoroughly sifted, baked in the oven to kill parasites and insects, cooled and put in a box, and the pupa case buried in it. Every time it rained, I opened the box and moistened the earth. Two months after time for emergence, I dug out the pupa case to find it white with mold. I had no idea what the trouble was, for I had done much work over that case, and the whole winter tended it solicitously. It was one of my earliest attempts, and I never have found another caterpillar or any eggs, though I often searched the poplars for them. However, something better happened. I say better, because I think if they will make honest confession, all people who have gathered eggs and raised caterpillars from them in confinement, by feeding cut leaves, will admit that the pupa cases they get and the moss they produce are only about half size. The big fine cases and cocoons are the ones you find made by caterpillars in freedom, or by those that have passed at least the fourth or fifth molt out of doors. So it was a better thing for my illustration and for my painting, when in June of this year, Raymond, in crossing town from a ball game, found a large, perfect Modesta female. He secured her in his hat and hurried to me. Raymond's hat has had many things in it besides his head, and his pockets are always lumpy with boxes. Although perfect, she had mated, deposited her eggs, and was declining. All she wanted was to be left alone, and she would sit with wings widespread wherever placed. I was in the orchard, treating myself to some rare big musky red raspberries that are my a special property, when Raymond came with her. He set her on a shoot before me, and guarded her while I arranged a camera. She was the most complacent subject I ever handled outdoors, and did not make even an attempt to fly. Raymond was supposed to be watching while I worked, but our confidence in her was so great, that I paid all my attention to polishing my lenses and getting good light, while Raymond gathered berries with one hand and promiscuously waved the net over the bushes with the other. During the first exposure, Modesta was allowed to place and poise herself as seemed natural. For a second I used the brush on her gently, and coaxed her wings into spreading a little wider than was natural. These positions gave every evidence of being pleasing, and yet I was not satisfied. It was something else in the back of my head that kept uptruding itself as I walked to the cabin, with the beautiful moth clinging to my fingers. I did not feel quite happy about her, so she was placed in a large box, lined with corrugated paper, to wait a while until the mist in my brain cleared, and my nebulous disturbance evolved an idea. It came slowly. I had a caterpillar long ago, and had investigated the history of this moth. I asked Raymond where he found her, and he said, coming from the game. Now I question him about the kind of a tree, and he promptly answered on one of those poplars behind the school house. That was the clue. Instantly I recognized it. A poplar limb was what I wanted. Its fine glossy leaf, flattened stem, and smooth upright twigs make a setting appropriate, above all others, for the modest moth. I explained the situation to the deacon, and he had Brenner drive with him to the Hershey Farm, and help secure a limb from one of the very few Lombardi poplars of this region. They drove very fast, and I had to trouble to induce Modesta to clamor over a poplar twig and settle. Then, by gently stroking, an unusual wingsweep was secured, because there is a wonderful purple-pink and a peculiar blue on the back wings. It has been my experience that the longer a moth of these big, short-lived subjects remains out of doors, the paler its colors become, and most of them fade rapidly when mounted, if not kept in the dark. So my Modesta may have been slightly faded, but she could have been several shades paler, and yet appeared most beautiful to me. Her head, shoulders, and abdomen were a lovely dove gray, that soft tan gray with a warm shade, almost suggestive of pink. I suppose the reason I thought of this was because at the time two pairs of doves, one on a heap of driftwood overhanging the river, and the other in an apple-tree in the Aspie Orchard, a few rods away, were giving me much trouble, and I had dove gray on my mind. This same dove gray colored the basic third of the four wings. Then they were crossed with a little band, only a little less in width, of rich cinnamon brown. There was a narrow, wavy line of lighter brown, and the remaining third of the wing was paler, but with darker shadings. These four distinct color divisions were exquisitely blended, and on the darkest band near the costa was a tiny white half moon. The undersides of the four wings were a delicate brownish gray, with heavy flushings of a purplish pink, a most beautiful color. The back wings were dove color near the abdomen, more of a mouse color around the edges, and beginning strongly at the base and spreading in a lighter shade over the wing was the same purplish pink of the front underwing, only much stronger. Near the abdomen, a little below half the length, and adjoining the gray, each wing had a mark difficult to describe in shape and of rich blue color. The antennae stood up stoutly, and were of dove gray on one side and white on the other. The thorax legs and underside of the abdomen were more of the mouse gray in color. Over the whole moth and strong light, there was an almost intangible flushing of palish purple pink. It may have shaded through the forewing from beneath, and over the back wing from above. At any rate, it was there. So lovely and delicate was the whole color scheme. It made me feel that I would give much to see a newly emerged male of this species. In my childhood, my mother called this color aniline red. I once asked a Chicago importer if he believed that Oriental rugweavers sometimes use these big night moths as color guides in their weaving. He said he had heard this and gave me the freedom of his rarest rugs. Of course the designs woven into these rugs have a history and a meaning for those who understand. There were three, almost priceless, one of which I am quite sure copied its grays, terracotta, and black shades from Sacropia. There was another, a rug of pure silk that never could have touched a floor or been trusted outside a case had it been my property. That beyond all question took its exquisite combinations of browns and tans with pink lines and peacock blue designs from Polyphemus. A third could have been copied from No Moth Save Modesta, for it was dove gray, mouse gray, and cinnamon brown with the purplish pink of the back wings and exactly the blue of their decorations. Had this rug been woven of silk as the brown one, that moment would have taught me why people sometimes steal what they cannot afford to buy. Examination of the stock of any importer of high-grade rugs will convince one who knows moths that many of our commonest or their near relatives, native to the Orient, are really used as models for color combinations in rug weaving. The Heret frequently has moths in its border. The modest moth has a wingsweep in large females are from five and one-half to six inches. In my territory they are very rare, only a few caterpillars and one moth have fallen to me. This can be accounted for by the fact that the favorite food tree of the caterpillar is so scarce, for some reason having become almost extinct, except in a few cases where they are used for shade. The eggs are a grayish green and have the pearly appearance of almost all moth eggs. On account of white granules the caterpillar cannot fail to be identified. The moths in their beautiful soft coloring are well worth search and study. They are as exquisitely shaded as any and of a richness difficult to describe.