I slipped the bonnet enough to let them peep. She did not seem to think much of it, but the farmer laughed until his tanned face was red as an Indian's. His wife insisted on me putting down the jar, 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 of the jar if I would put my bonnet on my head, but I was afraid to attempt the exchange for fear my butterfly would try to escape, and I might crush it, a thing I almost never had allowed to happen.
The farmer's wife stuck her elbow into his ribs, and said, "How's that for the queerest spec'men ye ever see?" The farmer answered, "I never saw nothin' 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 of risking an injury to my Half-luna, for there had been one black day on which I had such a terrible experience that it entailed a lifetime of caution.
I had captured what I afterward learned was an Asterias, that seemed slightly different from any previous specimen, and a yellow swallow-tail, my first Papilio Turnus. The yellow one was the largest, most beautiful butterfly I ever had seen. I was carrying them, one between each thumb and forefinger, and running with all possible speed to reach the screen before my touch could soil the down on their exquisite 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 little girl; but when I opened my hand and saw that broken butterfly, and my down-painted fingers, I was never more afraid in my life. I screamed aloud in panic, and ran for my mother with all my might. Heartbroken, I could not control my voice to explain as I threw myself on her couch, and before I knew what they were doing, I was surrounded by sisters and the cook with hot water, bandages and camphor.
My mother clasped me in her arms, and rocked me on her breast. "There, there, my poor child," she said, "I know it hurts dreadfully!" And to the cook she commanded, "Pour on camphor quickly! She is half killed, or she never would come to me like this." I found my voice. "Camphor won't do any good," I wailed. "It was the most beautiful butterfly, 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 fut, at all!" Then I looked down and discovered that I had stubbed my toe in falling, and had left a bloody trail behind me. "Of course I am!" I sobbed indignantly. "Couldn't I wash off a little blood in the creek, and tie up my toe with a dock leaf and some grass? I've killed the most beautiful butterfly, and I know I won't be forgiven!"
I opened my tightly clenched hand and showed it to prove my words. The sight was so terrible to me that I jerked my foot from the cook, and thrust my hand into the water, screaming, "Wash it! Wash it! Wash the velvet from my hand! Oh! make it white again!" Before the cook bathed and bandaged my foot, she washed and dried my hand; and my mother whispered, "God knows you never meant to do it, and He is sorry as mother is." So my mother and the cook comforted me. The remainder scattered suddenly. It was years before I knew why, and I was a Shakespearean student before I caught the point to their frequently calling me 'Little Lady Macbeth!' After such an experience, it was not probable that I would risk crushing a butterfly to tie a bonnet on my head. It probably would be down my back half the time anyway. It usually was. As we neared the city I heard the farmer's wife tell him that he must take me to my home. He said he would not do any such a thing, but 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 consensus of opinion seemed to be that something was a nuisance, I could not tell whether it was I, or the Half-luna. On coming to the parlour a little later, ladened with leaves and flowers, my treasure was gone. The cook was sure it had flown from the door over some one's head, and she said very tersely that it was a burning shame, and if such carelessness as that ever occurred again she would quit her job. Such is the confidence of a child that I accepted my loss as an inevitable accident, and tried to be brave to comfort her, although my heart was almost broken. Of course they freed my moth. They never would have dared but that the little mother's couch stood all day empty now, and her chair unused beside it. My disappointment was so deep and far-reaching it made me ill then they scolded me, and said I had half killed myself carrying that heavy jar in the hot sunshine, although the pain from which I suffered was neither in my arms nor sunburned face.
So I lost my first Cecropia, and from that day until a woman grown and much of this material secured, in all my field work among the birds, flowers, and animals, I never had seen another. They had taunted me in museums, and been my envy in private collections, but find one, I could not. When in my field work among the birds, so many moths of other families almost had thrust themselves upon me that I began a collection of reproductions of them, I found little difficulty 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 pair of Antiopas spent a night, and waited to be pictured in the morning, among the leaves of my passion vine. Painted Beauties swayed along my flowered walks, and in September a Viceroy reigned in state on every chrysanthemum, and a Monarch was enthroned on every sunbeam. No luck was too good for me, no butterfly or moth too rare, except forever and always the coveted Cecropia, and by this time I had learned to my disgust that it was one of the commonest of all.
Then one summer, late in June, a small boy, having an earnest, eager little face, came to me tugging a large box. He said he had something for me. He said "they called it a butterfly, but he was sure it never was." He was eminently correct. He had 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. Then, I only could study a moth to my satisfaction and set it free; now, I could make reproductions so perfect that every antler of its antennae could be counted with the naked eye, and copy its colours accurately, before giving back its liberty.
I asked him whether he wanted money or a picture of it, and as I expected, he said 'money,' so he was paid. An hour later he came back and said 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 give him the money." My sympathy was with her. I wanted the studies I intended to make of that Cecropia myself, and I wanted them very badly.
I opened the box to examine the moth, and found it so numb with the cold over night, and so worn and helpless, that it could not cling to a leaf or twig. I tried repeatedly, and fearing that it had been subjected to rough treatment, and soon would be lifeless, for these moths live only a short time, I hastily set up a camera focusing on a branch. Then I tried posing my specimen. Until the third 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 slight but most essential alteration was made, everything replaced, and the bulb caught up. There was only a breath of sound as I turned, and then I stood horrified, for my Cecropia was sailing over a large elm tree in a corner of the orchard, and for a block my gaze followed it skyward, flying like a bird before it vanished in the distance, so quickly had it recovered in fresh air and sunshine.
I have undertaken to describe some very difficult things, but I would not attempt to portray my feelings, and three days later there was no change. It was in the height of my season of field work, and I had several extremely interesting series of bird studies on 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 made a study of a 'Ha-ha bird,' but I doubt if even that specimen would have lifted the gloom of those days. Everything was a drag, and frequently I would think over it all in detail, and roundly bless myself for taking a prize so rare, to me at least, into the open.
The third day stands lurid in my memory. It was the hottest, most difficult day of all my years of experience afield. The temperature ranged from 104 to 108 in the village, and in quarries open to the east, flat fields, and steaming swamps it certainly could have been no cooler. With set cameras I was working for a shot at a hawk that was feeding on all the young birds and 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, and the landscape took on a sombre black velvet hue, with a liberal sprinkling of gold stars. I sank into a stupor going home, and an old farmer aroused me, and disentangled my horse from a thicket of wild briers into which it had strayed. He said most emphatically that if I did not know enough to remain indoors weather like that, my friends should appoint me a 'guardeen.'
I reached the village more worn in body and spirit than I ever had been. I felt that I could not endure another degree of heat on the back of my head, and I was much 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 thought! Perhaps people would not care for them! For that matter, perhaps the editors and publishers never would give the public an opportunity to see my work at all!
I dragged a heavy load up the steps and swung it to the veranda, and there stood almost paralysed. On the top step, where I could not reach the Cabin door without seeing it, newly emerged, and slowly exercising a pair of big wings, with every gaudy marking fresh with new life, 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 God had been sorry for me, and sent it there to encourage me to keep on picturing the beauties and wonders of His creations for people who could not go afield to see for themselves, and to teach those who could to protect helpless, harmless things for their use and beauty.
I walked down the hall, and vaguely scanned the solid rows of books and specimens lining the library walls. I scarcely realized the thought that was in my mind, but what I was looking for was not there. The dining-room then, with panelled walls and curtains of tapestry? It was not there! Straight to the white and gold music room I went. Then 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 that I was not dreaming. To search the fields and woods for twenty years, and then find the specimen I had sought awaiting me at my own door! Well might it have been a dream, but that the Cecropia, clinging to the meshes of the lace, slowly opening and closing its wings to strengthen them for flight, could be nothing but a delightful reality.
A few days later, in the valley of the Wood Robin, while searching for its nest I found a large cocoon. It was above my head, but afterward I secured it by means of a ladder, and carried it home. Shortly there emerged a yet larger Cecropia, and luck 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 fall, when after their last moult and casting of skin, they reached the final period of feeding; some were over four inches in length, a beautiful shade of greenish blue, with red and yellow warty projections—tubercles, according to scientific works.
It is easy to find the cocoons these caterpillars spin, because they are the largest woven by any moth, and placed in such a variety of accessible spots. They can be found in orchards, high on branches, and on water sprouts at the base of trees. Frequently they are spun on swamp willows, 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 crossing a stream in the heart of the swamp, by a girl not unknown to fiction, who brought it to me. In a deserted orchard close the Wabash, Raymond once found a pair of empty cocoons at the foot of a big apple tree, fastened to the same twigs, and within two inches of each other.
But the most wonderful thing of all occurred when Wallace Hardison, a faithful friend to my work, sawed a board from the roof of his chicken house and carried to me twin Cecropia cocoons, spun so closely together they were touching, and slightly interwoven. By the closest examination I could discover slight difference between them. The one on the right was a trifle fuller in the body, wider at the top, a shade lighter in colour, and the inner case seemed heavier.
All winter those cocoons occupied the place of state in my collection. Every few days I tried them to see if they gave the solid thump indicating healthy pupae, and listened to learn if they were moving. 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 moth from a single cocoon had emerged on the eleventh. I hurried home near noon, only to find that I was late, for one was out, and the top of the other cocoon heaving with the movements of the second.
The moth that had escaped was a male. It clung to the side of the board, wings limp, its abdomen damp. The opening from which it came was so covered with terra cotta coloured down that I thought at first it must have disfigured itself; but full development proved it could spare that much and yet appear all right.
In the fall I had driven a nail through one corner of the board, and tacked it against the south side of the Cabin, where I made reproductions of the cocoons. The nail had been left, and now it suggested the same place. A light 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, Molly-Cotton at the other, and the gardener in the rear. There was not a second to be lost, and no time for an unnecessary movement; for in the heat and bright sunshine those moths would emerge and develop with amazing rapidity.
Molly-Cotton held an umbrella over them to prevent this as much as possible; the Deacon handed plate holders, and Brenner ran errands. 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 front feet struggling to pull up the body; and its antennae beginning to lift, when I was ready for the first snap at half-past eleven.
By the time I inserted the slide, turned the plate holder and removed another slide, the first moth to appear had climbed up the board a few steps, 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 were folded neither to the back nor to the front, but pressed against the body in a lengthwise crumpled mass, the heavy front rib, or costa, on top.
Again I changed plates with all speed. By the time I was ready for the third snap the male had reached the top of the board, its wings opened for the first time, and began a queer trembling motion. The second one had emerged and was running 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 turned forward in position, proved this a female. The exposure was made not ten seconds after she cleared the case, and with her back to the lens, so the position and condition of the wings and antennae on emergence can be seen clearly.
Quickly as possible I changed the plates again; the time that elapsed could not have been over half a minute. The male was trying to creep up the wall, and the increase in the length and expansion of the female's wings could be seen. The colours on both were exquisite, but they grew a trifle less brilliant as the moths became dry.
Again I turned to the business of plate changing. The heat was intense, and perspiration was streaming from my face. I called to Molly-Cotton to shield the moths while I made 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 on the logs and travelling up the side of the Cabin. The female was climbing toward the logs also, so that a side view showed her wings already beginning to lift above her back.
I had only five snapshot plates in my holders, so I was compelled to stop. It was as well, for surely the record was complete, and I was almost prostrate with excitement and heat. Several days later I opened each of the cocoons and made interior studies. The one on the right was 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 can be used. The one on the left was opened down the front of the outer case, the silk parted and the heavy inner case cut from top to bottom to show the smooth interior wall, the thin pupa case burst by the exit of the moth, and the cast caterpillar skin crowded at the bottom.
The pair mated that same night, and the female began laying eggs by noon the following day. She dotted them in lines over the inside of her box, and on leaves placed in it, and at times piled them in a heap instead of placing them as do these moths in freedom. Having taken 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. Hardison thought he was doing anything unusual when he brought me those cocoons, yet by bringing them, he made it possible for me to secure this series of twin Cecropia moths, male and female, a thing never before recorded by lepidopterist or photographer so far as I can learn.
The Cecropia is a moth whose acquaintance nature-loving city people can cultivate. In December of 1906, on a tree, maple I think, near No. 2230 North Delaware Street, Indianapolis, I found four cocoons 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 clipped in Indianapolis alone, and there is no reason why any other city that has maple, elm, catalpa, and other shade trees would not have as many; so that any one who would like can find them easily.
Cecropia cocoons bewilder a beginner by their difference in shape. You cannot determine the sex of the moth by the size of the cocoon. In the case of the twins, the cocoon of the female was the larger; but 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 quantities of eggs ready to deposit as soon as they have mated. If any one wants to winter a pair of moths, they are reasonably sure of doing so by selecting the heaviest and lightest cocoons they can find.
In the selection of cocoons, hold them to the ear, and with a quick motion reverse them end for end. If there is a dull, solid thump, the moth is 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 caterpillar has gone into the cocoon with one of the tiny parasites that infest these worms, clinging to it, and the pupa has been eaten by the parasite.
In fall and late summer are the best times to find cocoons, as birds tear open many of them in winter; and when weatherbeaten they fade, and do not show the exquisite shadings of silk of those newly spun. When fresh, the colours range from almost white through lightest tans and browns to a genuine red, and there is a silvery effect that is lovely on some of the large, baggy ones, hidden under bridges. Out of doors the moths emerge in middle May or June, but they are earlier in the heat of a house. They 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. It at once creeps around until a place where it can hang with the wings down is found, and soon there begins a sort of pumping motion of the body. I imagine this is to start circulation, to exercise parts, and force blood into the wings. They begin to expand, to dry, to take on colour with amazing rapidity, and as soon as they are full size and crisp, the moth commences raising and lowering them slowly, as in flight. If a male, he emerges near ten in the forenoon, and flies at dusk in search of a mate.
As the females are very heavy with eggs, they usually remain where they are. After mating they begin almost at once to deposit their eggs, and do not take flight until they have finished. The eggs are round, having a flat top that becomes slightly depressed as they dry. They are of pearl colour, with a touch of brown, changing to greyish as the tiny caterpillars develop. Their outline can be traced 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 and the young is large, for they are nowhere numerous enough to become a pest, as they certainly would if three hundred caterpillars survived to each female moth. The young feed on apple, willow, maple, box-elder, or wild cherry leaves; and grow through a series of feeding periods and moults, during which they rest for a few days, cast the skin and intestinal lining and then feed for another period.
After the females have finished depositing their eggs, they cling to branches, vines or walls a few days, fly aimlessly at night and then pass out without ever having taken food.
Cecropia has several 'Cousins,' Promethea, Angulifera, Gloveri, and Cynthia, that vary slightly in marking and more in colour. All are smaller than Cecropia. The male 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 very beautiful. The markings on the wings of both are not half-moon shaped, as Cecropia and Gloveri, but are oblong, and largest at the point next the apex of the wing.
Gloveri could not be told from Cecropiain half-tone reproduction by any save a scientist, so similar are the markings, but in colour they are vastly different, and more 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 are a lovely red wine colour, with warm tan borders, and the crescents are white, with a line of tan and then of black. The abdomen is white striped with wine and black.
Cynthia has pale olive green shadings on both male and female. These are imported moths brought here about 1861 in the hope that they would prove valuable in silk culture. They occur mostly where the ailanthus grows.
My heart goes out to Cecropia because it is such a noble, birdlike, big fellow, and since it has decided to be rare with me no longer, all that is necessary is to pick it up, either in caterpillar, cocoon, or moth, at any season of the year, in almost any location. The Cecropia 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 have found them in like places. Cecropia cocoons are attached to fences, chicken-coops, barns, houses, and all through the orchards of old country places, so that their emergence at bloom time adds to May and June one more beauty, and frequently I speak of them as the Robin Moth.
In connexion with Cecropia there came to me the most delightful experience of my life. One perfect night during the middle of May, all the world white with tree bloom, touched to radiance with brilliant moonlight; intoxicating with countless blending perfumes, I placed a female Cecropia on the screen of my sleeping-room door and retired. The lot on which the Cabin stands is sloping, so that, although the front foundations are low, my 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 came floating like birds down the moonbeams. I carefully removed the female from the door to a window close beside, and stepped on the porch. No doubt I was permeated with the odour of the moth. As I advanced to the top step, that lay even with the middle branches of the apple trees, the exquisite big creatures came swarming around me. I could feel them on my hair, my shoulders, and see them settling on my gown and outstretched hands.
Far as I could penetrate the night-sky more were coming. They settled on the bloom-laden branches, on the porch pillars, on me indiscriminately. I stepped inside the door with one on each hand and five clinging to my gown. This experience, I am sure, suggested Mrs. Comstock's moth hunting in the Limberlost. Then I went back to the 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 would so confuse me by flight I could not be sure I was not numbering the same one twice. With eight males, some of them fine large moths, one superb, from which to choose, my female mated with an insistent, frowsy little scrub lacking two feet and having torn and ragged wings. I needed no surer proof that she had very dim vision.
CHAPTER IV The Yellow Emperor: Eacles Imperialis
Several years ago, Mr. A. Eisen, a German, of Coldwater, Michigan, who devotes his leisure to collecting moths, gave me as pinned specimens a pair of Eacles Imperialis, and their full life history. Any intimate friend of mine can testify that yellow is my favourite colour, with shades of lavender running into purple, second choice. When I found a yellow moth, liberally decorated with lavender, the combination was irresistible. Mr. Eisen said the mounted specimens were faded; but the living moths were beautiful beyond description. Naturally I coveted life.
I was very particular to secure the history of the caterpillars and their favourite foods. I learned from Mr. Eisen that they were all of the same shape and habit, but some of them might be green, with cream-coloured heads and feet, and black face lines, the body covered sparsely with long hairs; or they might be brown, with markings of darker brown and black with white hairs; but they would be at least three inches long when full grown, and would have a queer habit of rearing and drawing leaves to their mouths when feeding. I was told I would find them in August, on leaves of spruce, pine, cherry, birch, alder, sycamore, elm, or maple; that they pupated in the ground; and the moths were common, especially around lights in city parks, and at street crossings.
Coming from a drive one rare June evening, I found Mr. William Pettis, a shooter of oil wells, whom I frequently met while at my work, sitting on the veranda in an animated business discussion with the Deacon.
"I brought you a pair of big moths that I found this morning on some bushes beside the road," said Mr. Pettis. "I went to give Mr. Porter a peep to see if he thought you'd want them, and they both got away. He was quicker than I, and caught the larger one, but mine sailed over the top of that tree." He indicated an elm not far away.
"Did you know them?" I asked the Deacon.
"No," he answered. "You have none of the kind. They are big as birds and a beautiful yellow."
"Yellow!" No doubt I was unduly emphatic. "Yellow! Didn't you know better than to open a box with moths in it outdoors at night?"
"It was my fault," interposed Mr. Pettis. "He told me not to open the box, but I had shown them a dozen times to-day and they never moved. I didn't think about night being their time to fly. I am very sorry."
So was I. Sorry enough to have cried, but I tried my best to conceal it. Anyway, it might be Io, and I had that. On going inside to examine the moth, I found a large female Eacles Imperialis, with not a scale of down misplaced. Even by gas light I could see that the yellow of the living moth was a warm canary colour, and the lavender of the mounted specimen closer heliotrope on the living, for there were pinkish tints that had faded from the pinned moth.
She was heavy with eggs, and made no attempt to fly, so I closed the box and left her until the lights were out, and then removed the lid. Every opening was tightly screened, and as she had mated, I did not think she would fly. I hoped in the freedom of the Cabin she would not break her wings, and ruin herself for a study.
There was much comfort in the thought that I could secure her likeness; her eggs would be fertile, and I could raise a brood the coming season, in which would be both male and female. When life was over I could add her to my specimen case, for these are of the moths that do not eat, and live only a few days after depositing their eggs. So I went out and explained to Mr. Pettis what efforts I had made to secure this yellow moth, comforted him for allowing the male to escape by telling him I could raise all I wanted from the eggs of the female, showed him my entire collection, and sent him from the Cabin such a friend to my work, that it was he who brought me an oil-coated lark a few days later.
On rising early the next morning, I found my moth had deposited some eggs on the dining-room floor, before the conservatory doors, more on the heavy tapestry that covered them, and she was clinging to a velvet curtain at a library window, liberally dotting it with eggs, almost as yellow as her body. I turned a tumbler over those on the floor, pinned folds in the curtains, and as soon as the light was good, set up a camera and focused on a suitable location.
She climbed on my finger when it was held before her, and was carried, with no effort to fly, to the place I had selected, though Molly-Cotton walked close with a spread net, ready for the slightest impulse toward movement. But female moths seldom fly until they have finished egg depositing, and this one was transferred with no trouble to the spot on which I had focused. On the back wall of the Cabin, among some wild roses, she was placed on a log, and immediately raised her wings, and started for the shade of the vines. The picture made of her as she walked is beautiful. After I had secured several studies she was returned to the library curtain, where she resumed egg placing. These were not counted, but there, were at least three hundred at a rough guess.
I had thought her lovely in gas light, but day brought forth marvels and wonders. When a child, I used to gather cowslips in a bed of lush swale, beside a little creek at the foot of a big hill on our farm. At the summit was an old orchard, and in a brush-heap a brown thrush nested. From a red winter pearmain the singer poured out his own heart in song, and then reproduced the love ecstasy of every other bird of the orchard. That moth's wings were so exactly the warm though delicate yellow of the flowers I loved, that as I looked at it I could feel my bare feet sinking in the damp ooze, smell the fragrance of the buttercups, and hear again the ripple of the water and the mating exultation of the brown thrush.
In the name—Eacles Imperialis—there is no meaning or appropriateness to "Eacles"; "Imperialis"—of course, translates imperial—which seems most fitting, for the moth is close the size of Cecropia, and of truly royal beauty. We called it the Yellow Emperor. Her Imperial Golden Majesty had a wing sweep of six and a quarter inches. From the shoulders spreading in an irregular patch over front and back wings, most on the front, were markings of heliotrope, quite dark in colour: Near the costa of the front wings were two almost circular dots of slightly paler heliotrope, the one nearest the edge about half the size of the other. On the back wings, halfway from each edge, and half an inch from the marking at the base, was one round spot of the same colour. Beginning at the apex of the front pair, and running to half an inch from the lower edge, was a band of escalloped heliotrope. On the back pair this band began half an inch from the edge and ran straight across, so that at the outer curve of the wing it was an inch higher. The front wing surface and the space above this marking on the back were liberally sprinkled with little oblong touches of heliotrope; but from the curved line to the bases of the back pair, the colouring was pure canary yellow.
The top of the head was covered with long, silken hairs of heliotrope, then a band of yellow; the upper abdomen was strongly shaded with heliotrope almost to the extreme tip. The lower sides of the wings were yellow at the base, the spots showing through, but not the bands, and only the faintest touches of the mottling. The thorax and abdomen were yellow, and the legs heliotrope. The antennae were heliotrope, fine, threadlike, and closely pressed to the head. The eyes were smaller than those of Cecropia, and very close together.
Compared with Cecropia these moths were very easy to paint. Their markings were elaborate, but they could be followed accurately, and the ground work of colour was warm cowslip yellow. The only difficulty was to make the almost threadlike antennae show, and to blend the faint touches of heliotrope on the upper wings with the yellow.
The eggs on the floor and curtains were guarded with care. They were dotted around promiscuously, and at first were clear and of amber colour, but as the little caterpillars grew in them, they showed a red line three fourths of the way around the rim, and became slightly depressed in the middle. The young emerged in thirteen days. They were nearly half an inch long, and were yellow with black lines. They began the task of eating until they reached the pupa state, by turning on their shells and devouring all of them to the glue by which they were fastened.
They were given their choice of oak, alder, sumac, elm, cherry, and hickory. The majority of them seemed to prefer the hickory. They moulted on the fifth day for the first time, and changed to a brown colour. Every five or six days they repeated the process, growing larger and of stronger colour with each moult, and developing a covering of long white hairs. Part of these moulted four times, others five.
At past six weeks of age they were exactly as Mr. Eisen had described them to me. Those I kept in confinement pupated on a bed of baked gravel, in a tin bucket. It is imperative to bake any earth or sand used for them to kill pests invisible to the eye, that might bore into the pupa cases and destroy the moths.
I watched the transformation with intense interest. After the caterpillars had finished eating they travelled in search of a place to burrow for a day or two. Then they gave up, and lay quietly on the sand. The colour darkened hourly, the feet and claspers seemed to draw inside, and one morning on going to look there were some greenish brown pupae. They shone as if freshly varnished, as indeed they were, for the substance provided to facilitate the emergence of the pupae from the caterpillar skins dries in a coating, that helps to harden the cases and protect them. These pupae had burst the skins at the thorax, and escaped by working the abdomen until they lay an inch or so from the skins.
What a "cast off garment" those skins were! Only the frailest outside covering, complete in all parts, and rapidly turning to a dirty brown. The pupae were laid away in a large box having a glass lid. It was filled with baked sand, covered with sphagnum moss, slightly dampened occasionally, and placed where it was cool, but never at actual freezing point. The following spring after the delight of seeing them emerge, they were released, for I secured a male to complete my collection a few days later, and only grew the caterpillars to prove it possible.
There was a carnival in the village, and, for three nights the streets were illuminated brightly from end to end, to the height of Ferris wheels and diving towers. The lights must have shone against the sky for miles around, for they drew from the Limberlost, from the Canoper, from Rainbow Bottom, and the Valley of the Wood Robin, their winged creatures of night.
I know Emperors appear in these places in my locality, for the caterpillars feed on leaves found there, and enter the ground to pupate; so of course the moth of June begins its life in the same location. Mr. Pettis found the mated pair he brought to me, on a bush at the edge of a swamp. They also emerge in cities under any tree on which their caterpillars feed. Once late in May, in the corner of a lichen-covered, old snake fence beside the Wabash on the Shimp farm, I made a series of studies of the home life of a pair of ground sparrows. They had chosen for a location a slight depression covered with a rank growth of meadow grass. Overhead wild plum and thorn in full bloom lay white-sheeted against the blue sky; red bud spread its purple haze, and at a curve, the breast of the river gleamed white as ever woman's; while underfoot the grass was obscured with masses of wild flowers.
An unusually fine cluster of white violets attracted me as I worked around the birds, so on packing at the close of the day I lifted the plant to carry home for my wild flower bed. Below a few inches of rotting leaves and black mould I found a lively pupa of the Yellow Emperor.
So these moths emerge and deposit their eggs in the swamps, forests, beside the river and wherever the trees on which they feed grow. When the serious business of life is over, attracted by strong lights, they go with other pleasure seeking company, and grace society by their royal presence.
I could have had half a dozen fine Imperialis moths during the three nights of the carnival, and fluttering above buildings many more could be seen that did not descend to our reach. Raymond had such a busy time capturing moths he missed most of the joys of the carnival, but I truly think he liked the chase better. One he brought me, a female, was so especially large that I took her to the Cabin to be measured, and found her to be six and three quarter inches, and of the lightest yellow of any specimen I have seen. Her wings were quite ragged. I imagined she had finished laying her eggs, and was nearing the end of life, hence she was not so brilliant as a newly emerged specimen. The moth proved this theory correct by soon going out naturally.
Choice could be made in all that plethora, and a male and female of most perfect colouring and markings were selected, for my studies of a pair. One male was mounted and a very large female on account of her size. That completed my Imperialis records from eggs to caterpillars, pupae and moths.
The necessity for a book on this subject; made simple to the understanding, and attractive to the eye of the masses, never was so deeply impressed upon me as in an experience with Imperialis. Molly-Cotton was attending a house-party, and her host had chartered a pavilion at a city park for a summer night dance. At the close of one of the numbers; over the heads of the laughing crowd, there swept toward the light a large yellow moth.
With one dexterous sweep the host caught it, and while the dancers crowded around him with exclamations of wonder and delight, he presented it to Molly-Cotton and asked, "Do you know what it is?"
She laughingly answered, "Yes. But you don't!"
"Guilty!" he responded. "Name it."
For one fleeting instant Molly-Cotton measured the company. There was no one present who was not the graduate of a commissioned high school. There were girls who were students at The Castle, Smith, Vassar, and Bryn Mawr. The host was a Cornell junior, and there were men from Harvard and Yale.
"It is an Eacles Imperialis Io Polyphemus Cecropia Regalis," she said. Then in breathless suspense she waited.
"Shades of Homer!" cried the host. "Where did you learn it?"
"They are flying all through the Cabin at home," she replied. "There was a tumbler turned over their eggs on the dining-room floor, and you dared not sit on the right side of the library window seat because of them when I left."
"What do you want with their eggs?" asked a girl.
"Want to hatch their caterpillars, and raise them until they transform into these moths," answered poor Molly-Cotton, who had been taught to fear so few living things that at the age of four she had carried a garter snake into the house for a playmate.
"Caterpillars!" The chorus arose to a shriek. "Don't they sting you?
Don't they bite you?"
"No, they don't!" replied Molly-Cotton. "They don't bite anything except leaves; they are fine big fellows; their colouring is exquisite; and they evolve these beautiful moths. I invite all of you to visit us, and see for yourselves how intensely interesting they are."
There was a murmur of polite thanks from the girls, but one man measured Molly-Cotton from the top curl of her head to the tip of her slippers, and answered, "I accept the invitation. When may I come?" He came, and left as great a moth enthusiast as any of us. This incident will be recognized as furnishing the basis on which to build the ballroom scene in "A Girl of the Limberlost", in which Philip and Edith quarrel over the capture of a yellow Emperor. But what of these students from the great representative colleges of the United States, to whom a jumbled string made from the names, of half a dozen moths answered for one of the commonest of all?
CHAPTER V The Lady Bird: Deilephila Lineata
In that same country garden where my first Cecropia was found, Deilephila Lineata was one of my earliest recollections. This moth flew among the flowers of especial 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 grey thing hovering in air before the flowers was almost as large as the humming-birds, sipping honey as they did, swift in flight as they; and both my parents thought it a bird.
They did not know the humming-birds 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 humming-bird 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 nest 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 burr, and two tiny eggs. I well remember he told me that I now had seen the nest and eggs of the smallest feathered creature except the Lady Bird, and he never had found its cradle himself.
Every summer I discovered nests by the dozen, 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 bough watch where birds flew with bugs and worms they collected. Lady Birds were spied upon, but when they left our garden they arose high in 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 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 humming-birds 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 neighbours, for not one of them had a tail. When this information was carried my father, he became serious, but finally he said perhaps the tail was very short; those of humming-birds or wrens were, and apparently some water birds 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 never had been found by a person so familiar with all outdoors as my father. Then came a second discovery: it could curl its beak in a little 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 grew dubious.
"I always have 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 Lady Bird 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, phlox, tiger and day lilies, Job's tears, hollyhocks, petunias, poppies, mignonette, and every dear old-fashioned flower that grows, and followed around the flower-edged beds of lettuce, radishes, and small vegetables, relentlessly trailing Lady Birds.
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 Lady Bird. 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 auto mobile 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 humming-bird, 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 Deilephila Lineata. Deile—evening; phila—lover; lineata—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 colour. It has the long slender wings of the Sphingid moths, and in grace and tirelessness of flight resembles Celeus, 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 olive brown, decorated with one long white line dividing it 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 up 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 flushed with beautiful rosy pink, and beneath it is tan colour.
The wings are works of art. The front are a rich olive brown, marked the long way in the middle by a wide band of buff, shading to lighter buff at the base. They are edged from the costa to where they meet the back wings, with 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 colour on the sides. This pink, combined with the olive, dark browns, and white lining, makes the colour scheme of peculiar richness.
Its antennae are long, clubbed, and touched with white at the tips. The legs and body are tan colour. The undersides of the wings are the same as the upper, but the markings of brown and buffish pink show through in lighter colour, 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 woodbine 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-defence, 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 answer the description; but all I ever have known to be Lineata were green.
The pupae are nearly two inches long and are tan coloured. 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 sweets of petunias in a flower bed at the Cabin, on the seventh of October.
CHAPTER VI Moths of the Moon: Actias 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 shoe-box, having many rough perforations. I always have been glad that my eyes softened at the touch of pleading on her face, and a smile sprang in 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 in 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, moths, insects, and caterpillars of every description.
"I guess I won't stop," said the woman in answer 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 you 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 shoe-box had brought me an Actias Luna, newly emerged, and as yet unable to fly. I held down my finger, it climbed on, and was lifted to the light.
"Ain't it the prettiest thing?" asked the woman, with stars sparkling in her dark eyes. "Did you ever see whiter 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, pursy body was covered with long, furry scales of the purest white imaginable. The wings were of an exquisite light green colour; 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 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-coloured 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 colour. 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. McCollum, 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 neighbours 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 told me. I'll bring you everything I can get my fingers on that you can use, and send for you when I find bird nests."
Mrs. McCollum 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. McCollum's yard explained the presence of a Luna there, as the caterpillars of this specie 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 close a 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 honour 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 most truly his.
In August of the same year, while driving on a corduroy road in Michigan, I espied 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 'massaugers,' 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 from 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 arose 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 mated 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 colour 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 develop slower, and I have had the egg period stretched to three weeks at times. Every few days the young caterpillars cast their skins and emerged in brighter colour and larger in size. It is usually supposed they mature in four moults, 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 strong blue-green colour. 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 whiter, 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 sand pail 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 Katherine 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 moths on the trunks of oak, walnut, hickory, birch or willow, during the month of June. The moths 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 ten o'clock or midnight, and remain with them until morning. I have found mated pairs as late as ten o'clock in the forenoon.
The moths 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 gaudily painted ones have the chance to die naturally, for both birds and squirrels prey upon them, tearing 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 Luna 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 Cecropia.
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 those 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 for ever 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 acid is ejected that cuts and softens the tough fibre, and allows the moth 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 colours so brilliant and fresh as on the wings of these creatures of night.
After you have learned the markings and colours, and secured 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 surer of life at your hands than 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; their down covering in place to the last scale; their colours never so brilliant; their markings the plainest they ever will be; their big pursy 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 some one beside you with a spread net covering them, in case they want to fly before you are ready to make an exposure. In painting this moth the colours 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 colour combinations understood, I fancy each person will find the one bearing most of his favourite colour the loveliest. It may be that on account of its artistically cut and coloured trailers, Luna has a touch of grace above any.