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.