Moths of the Limberlost: A Book About Limberlost Cabin

flower, and butterfly. I carried crumbs to the warblers in the sweetbrier; was lifted for surreptitious peeps at the hummingbird nesting in the honeysuckle; sat within a few feet of the robin

ere wrens in the knot holes, chippies in the fences, thrushes in the brush heaps, bluebirds in the hollow apple trees, cardinals in the bushes, tanagers in the saplings, fly-catchers in the tr

ken, I gathered them carefully, and explained to the plants that I wanted them for my mother because she was so ill she could not come to them an

on one butterfly wing than on many flower faces. I liked to slip along the bloom-bordered walks of that garden and stand spell-bound, watching a black velvet butterfly, which trailed wings painted in white, red, and green, as it clambered over a clump of sweet-williams, and indeed, the flowers appeared plain compared with it! Butterflies have changed their ha

immovably among the flowers of our garden that the butterflies would mistake me for a plant and alight on my head and hands, while I strove to conceive the greatness of a Being who could devise and colour all those different butterfly wings. I woul

hat screen, feasted on leaves and flowers, drunk from saucers of sweetened water, been admired and studied in minutest detail, and then set free to enjoy life as before. With Whitman, "I never was possessed with a mania for killing things." I had no idea of what families they were, and I supplied my own names

velvet with escalloped margins, a deep band of buff lightly traced with black bordering them, and a pronounced point close the apex of the front pair. When it came to books, all they had to teach me were the names. I

y flushed with terra cotta; the front pair near the outer margin had oval markings of blue-black, shaded with grey, outlined with half circles of white, and secondary circles of black. When the wings were raised I could see a face of terra cotta, with small eyes, a broad band of white across the forehead, and an abdomen of terra cotta banded with

nement of school almost had broken my heart, but it really was time for me to be having some formal education. It had been the greatest possible treat to be allowed to r

she was not there to know. I knelt and gathered all the fallen petals that were fresh, and then spreading my apron on the ground, jarred the plant, not harder than a light wind might, and all that fell in this manner it seemed right to take. The selection was very pleasing, for the yellow glaze

llar window, and I must have thought the jar the nearest equivalent to the cellar. The Half-luna did not mind in the least, but went on lazily opening and closing its wings, yet making no attempt to fly. If I had known what it was, or anything of its cond

g team was hailed with lifted hand, just as I had seen my father do, and in as perfect an imitation of his voice

city, and they said I might ride. With quaking heart I handed up my jar, and climbed in, covering all those ten miles in the June sunshine, on a board laid across e wagon

and offered to set her foot on it so that it would not 'jounce' much, but I did not propose to risk it 'jouncing' at all, and clung to it persistently. Then she offered to tie her apron over the top

like it before." Then she said, "Aw pshaw! I didn't mean in the jar!" Then they both laughed. I thought they were amused at me, but I had no intention

isite wings. I stumbled, and fell, so suddenly, there was no time to release them. The black one sailed away with a ragged wing, and the yellow was crushed into a shapeless mass in my hand. I was accustomed to falling off fences, from trees, and into the creek, and because my mother was an invalid I had learned to doctor my own bruises and uncomplainingly go my way. My reputation was that of a very brave

utterfly, and I've broken it all to pieces. It must have taken God hours studying how to make it different from all the others, and I know He never will forgive me!" I began sobbing worse than ever. The cook on her knees before me sat on her heels suddenly. "Great Heavens! She's screechin' about breakin' a butterfly, and not her poor fu

t she said he must. She explained that she knew me, and it would not be decent to put me down where they were going, and leave me to walk home and carry that heavy jar. So the farmer took me to our gate. I thanked him as politely as I knew how, and kissed his wife and the fat baby in payment for their kindness, for I was very grateful. I was so tired I scarcely could set down the jar and straighten my cramped arms when I had the opportunity. I had expected my family to be delighted over my treasure, but they exhibited an astonishing indifference, and were far more concerned over the state of my blistered face. I would not hear of putting my Half-luna on the basement screen as they suggested, but enthroned it in state on the best lace curtains at a parlour window, covered the sill with leaves and flowers, and went to bed happy. The following morning my sisters said a curtain was ruined, and when they removed it to attempt restoration, the general cons

ficulty in securing almost anything else. I could picture Sphinx Moths in any position I chose, and Lunas seemed eager to pose for me. A friend carried to me a beautiful tan-coloured Polyphemus with transparent moons like isinglass set in its wings of softest velvet down, and as for butterflies, it was not necessary to go afield for them; they came to me. I could pick a Papilio Ajax, that some of my friends were years in securing, from the pinks in my garden. A

d a splendid big Cecropia. I was delighted. Of course to have found one myself would have filled my cup to overflowing, but to secure a perfect, living specimen was good enough. For the first time my childish loss seemed in a measure compensated.

id he wanted the picture. On being questioned as to his change of heart, he said "mamma told him to say he wanted the picture, and she would

time it fell, but the fourth it clung, and crept down a twig, settling at last in a position that far, surpassed any posing that I could do. I was very pleased, and yet it made a complication. It had gone so far that it might be off the plate and from focus. It seemed so stupid and helpless that I decided to risk a peep at the glass, and hastily removing the plate and changing the shutter, a s

hand, and many miscellaneous subjects. In those days some pictures were secured that I then thought, and yet feel, will live, but nothing mattered to me. There was a standing joke among my friends that I never would be satisfied with my field work until I had mad

nd rabbits in the vicinity of its nest. I also wanted a number of studies to fill a commission that was pressing me. Subjects for several pictures had been found, and exposures made on them when the weather was so hot that the rubber slide of a plate holder would curl like a horseshoe if not laid on a case, and held flat by a camera while I worked. Perspiration dried, an

ch discouraged concerning my work. Why not drop it all, and go where there were cool forests and breezes sighing? Perhaps my studies were not half so good as I tho

ife, was the finest Cecropia I ever had seen anywhere. Recovering myself with a start, I had it under my net that had waited twenty years to cover it! Inside the door I dropped the net, and the moth crept on my fingers. What luck! What extra golden luck! I almost felt that

hen a realizing sense came to me. It was BRUSSELS LACE for which I was searching! On the most delicate, snowiest place possible, on the finest curtain there, I placed my Cecropia, and then stepped back and gazed at it with a sort of "Touch it over my dead body" sentiment in my heart. An effort was required to arouse myself, to realize tha

uck seemed with me. I could find them everywhere through June, the time of their emergence, later their eggs, and the tiny caterpillars that hatched from them. During the summer I found these caterpillars, in different stages of growth, until fal

illows, box-elder, maple, or wild cherry. Mr. Black once found for me the largest cocoon I ever have seen; a pale tan colour with silvery lights, woven against the inside of a hollow log. Perhaps the most beautiful of all, a dull red, was found under the flooring of an old bridge

ied to me twin Cecropia cocoons, spun so closely together they were touching, and slightly interwoven. By the closest examination I could discover slight d

g. By May they were under constant surveillance. On the fourteenth I was called from home a few hours to attend the funeral of a friend. I think nothing short of a funeral would have taken me, for the

he opening from which it came was so covered with terra cotta coloured down that I thought at first it m

t stroke on the head of the nail, covered with cloth to prevent jarring, fastened the board on a log. Never in all my life did I hurry as on that day, and I called my entire family into service. The Deacon stood at one elbow,

. Working as fast as I could make my fingers fly in setting up the camera, and getting a focus, the second moth's head was out, its f

and the second was halfway out. Its antennae were nearly horizontal now, and from its position I decided that the wings as they lay in the pupa case

ning into the first, so I held my finger in the line of its advance, and when it climbed on I lowered it to the edge to the board beside the cocoons. It immediately clung to the wood. The big pursy abdomen and smaller antennae, that now

The male was trying to creep up the wall, and the increase in the length and expansion of the female's wings c

the change. "Drat the moths!" cried the Deacon. "Shade your mother!" Being an obedient girl, she shifted the umbrella, and by the time I was ready for business, the male was o

as split down the left side and turned back to show the bed of spun silk of exquisite colour that covers the inner case. Some say this silk has no commercial value, as it is cut in lengths reaching from the top around the inner case and back to the top again; others think it c

en a picture of a full-grown caterpillar of this moth brought to me by Mr. Andrew Idlewine, I now had a complete Cecropia history; eggs, full-grown caterpillars, twin cocoons, and the story of the emergence of the moths that wintered in them. I do not suppose Mr. Hardiso

s of this moth, and on the next tree, save one, another. Then I began watching, and in the coming days I counted them by the hundred through the city. Several bushels of these cocoons could have been

ut I have known male and female alike to emerge from large or small. You are fairly sure of selecting a pair if you depend upon weight. The females are heavier than the males, because they emerge with qu

alive, and will emerge all right. If this thump is lacking, and there is a rattle like a small seed shaking in a dry pod, it means that the caterp

are the largest of any species, and exquisitely coloured, the shades being strongest on the upper side of the wings. They differ greatly in size, most males having an average wing sweep of five inches, and a female that emerged in my conservatory from a cocoon that I wintered with particular care had a spread of seven inches, the widest of which I have heard; six and three quarters is a large female. The moth, on appearing, seems all head and abdomen, the wings hanging limp and wet from the shoulders.

d through the shell on which they make their first meal when they emerge. Female Cecropas average about three hundred and fifty eggs each, that they sometimes place singly, and again string in rows, or in captivity pile in heaps. In freedom they deposit the eggs mostly on leaves, sometimes the under, sometimes the upper, sides or dot them on bark, boards or walls. The percentage of loss of eggs an

cling to branches, vines or walls a few days, fly aimlessl

of Promethea is the darkest moth of the Limberlost. The male of Angulifera is a brownish grey, the female reddish, with warm tan colours on her wing borders. She is

e beautiful. The only living Gloveri I ever secured was almost done with life, and she was so badly battered I could not think of making a picture of her. The wings ar

imported moths brought here about 1861 in the hope that they would prov

moth resembles the robin among birds; not alone because he is grey with red markings, but also he haunts the same localities. The robin is the bird of the eaves, the back door, the yard and orchard. Cecropia is the moth. My doorstep is not the only one they grace; my friends h

door is at least five feet above the ground, and opens on a circular porch, from which steps lead down between two apple trees, at that time sheeted in bloom. Past midnight I was awakened by soft touches on the screen, faint pullings at the wire. I went to the door and found the porch, orchard, and night-sky alive with Cecropias holding high carnival. I had not supposed there were so many in all this world. From every direction they

e veranda and revelled with the moths until dawn drove them to shelter. One magnificent specimen, birdlike above all the others, I followed across the orchard and yard to a grape arbour, where I picked him from the under side of a leaf after he had settled for the coming day. Repeatedly I counted close to a hundred, and then they