So far as the arrangement ofthe subjects of this book in family
groupings is concerned, any chapter might come first or last. It
is frankly announced as the book of the Nature Lover, and as such
is put together in the form that appears to me easiest to comprehend
and most satisfying to examine. I decided that it would be sufficient
to explain the whole situation to the satisfaction of any one, if I
began the book with a detailed history of moth, egg, caterpillar,
and cocoon and then gave complete portrayal of each stage in the
evolution of one cocoon and one pupa case moth. I began with
Cecropia, the commonest of all and one of the most beautiful
for the spinners, and ended with Regalis, of earth--and the rarest.
The luck I had in securing Regalis in such complete form seems to
me the greatest that ever happened to any, worker in this field,
and it reads more like a fairy tale than sober every-day fact,
copiously illustrated with studies from life. At its finish
I said, "Now I am done. This book is completed." Soon afterward,
Raymond walked in with a bunch of lilac twigs in his hand from
which depended three rolled leaves securely bound to their twigs
by silk spinning.
"I don't remember that we ever found any like these," he said.
'Would you be interested in them?'
Would I? Instantly I knew this book was not finished. As I held
the firm, heavy, leaf-rolled cocoons in my hand, I could see the
last chapter sliding over from fourteen to fifteen to make place
for Promethea, the loveliest of the Attacine group, a cousin of
Cecropia. Often I had seen the pictured cocoon, in its neat little,
tight little leaf-covered shelter, and the mounted moths of
scientific collections and museums; I knew their beautiful forms
and remembered the reddish tinge flushing the almost black coat
of the male and the red wine and clay-coloured female with her
elaborate marks, spots, and lines. Right there the book stopped
at leaf-fall early in November to await the outcome of those three
cocoons. If they would yield a pair in the spring, and if that
pair would emerge close enough together to mate and produce fertile
eggs, then by fall of the coming year I would have a complete
life history. That was a long wait, thickly punctuated with 'ifs.'
Then the twig was carried to my room and stood in a vase of
intricate workmanship and rare colouring.
Every few days I examined those cocoons and tested them by
weight. I was sure they were perfect. That spring I had been
working all day and often at night, so I welcomed an opportunity
to spend a few days at a lake where I would meet many friends;
boating and fishing were fine, while the surrounding country was
one uninterrupted panorama of exquisite land and water pictures.
I packed and started so hastily I forgot my precious cocoons.
Two weeks later on my return, before I entered the Cabin, I walked
round it to see if my flowers had been properly watered and
tended. It was not later than three in the afternoon but I saw at
least a dozen wonderful big moths, dusky and luring, fluttering
eagerly over the wild roses covering a south window of the Deacon's
room adjoining mine on the west. Instantly I knew what that meant.
I hurried to the room and found a female Promothea at the top of
the screen covering a window that the caretaker had slightly lowered.
I caught up a net and ran to bring a step-ladder. The back
foundation is several feet high and that threw the tops of the
windows close under the eaves. I mounted to the last step and
balancing made a sweep to capture a moth. They could see me and
scattered in all directions. I waited until they were beginning
to return, when from the thicket of leaves emerged a deep rose-flushed
little moth that sailed away, with every black one in pursuit.
I almost fell from the ladder. I went inside, only to learn that
what I feared was true. The wind had loosened the screen in my
absence, and the moth had passed through a crack, so narrow it
seemed impossible for it to escape.
Only those interested as I was, and who have had similar experience,
know how to sympathize. I had thought a crowbar would be required
to open one of those screens! With sinking heart I hurried to my
room. Joy! There was yet hope! The escaped moth was the only one
that had emerged. The first thing was to fasten the screen, the next
to live with the remaining cocoons.
The following morning another, female appeared, and a little later
a male.
The cocoons were long, slender, closely leaf-wrapped and hung from
stout spinning longer than the average leaf stem. The outside leaf
covering easily could be peeled away as the spinning did not seem
to adhere except at the edges. There was a thin waterproof coating
as with Cecropia, then a little loose spinning that showed most at
top and bottom, the leaf wrapping being so closely drawn that it
was plastered against the body of the heavy inner case around the
middle until it adhered. The inner case was smooth and dark inside
and the broken pupa case nearly black.
The male and female differed more widely in colour and markings
than any moths with which I had worked. At a glance, the male
reminded me of a monster Mourning Cloak butterfly. The front wings
from the base extending over half the surface were a dark brownish
black, outlined with a narrow escalloped line of clay colour of
light shade. The black colour from here lightened as it neared
the margin. At the apex it changed to a reddish brown tinge that
surrounded the typical eye-spot of all the Attacus group for almost
three-fourths of its circumference. The bottom of the eye was
blackish blue, shading abruptly to pale blue at the top. The
straggle M of white was in its place at the extreme tip, on the
usual rose madder field. From there a broad clay-coloured band
edged the wing and joined the dark colour in escallops.
Through the middle of it in an irregular wavy line was traced an
almost hair-fine marking of strong brown. The back wings were
darker than the darkest part of the fore-wings and this colour
covered them to the margin, lightening very slightly. A
clay-coloured band bordered the edge, touched with irregular
splashes of dark brown, a little below them a slightly heavier
line than that on the fore-wing, which seemed to follow the outline
of the decorations.
Underneath, the wings were exquisitely marked, flushed, and shaded
almost past description in delicate and nearly intangible reddish
browns, rose madder on grey, pink-tinged brown and clay colour.
On the fore-wings the field from base to first line was reddish brown
with a faint tinge of tan beside the costa. From this to the
clay-coloured border my descriptive powers fail. You could see
almost any shade for which you looked. There were greyish places
flushed with scales of red and white so closely set that the
result was frosty pink. Then the background would change to brown
with the same over-decoration. The bottom of the eye-spot was dark
only about one-fourth the way, the remaining three-fourths, tan
colour outlined at the top with pale blue and black in fine lines.
The white M showed through on a reddish background, as did the
brown line of the clay border. The back wings widespread were
even lovelier. Beginning about the eighth of an inch from the top
was a whitish line tracing a marking that when taken as a whole on
both outspread wings, on some, slightly resembled a sugar maple
leaf, and on others, the perfect profile of a face. There was a
small oblong figure of pinkish white where the eye would fall, and
the field of each space was brownish red velvet. From this to the
clay-coloured band with its paler brown markings and lines, the
pink and white scales sprinkled the brown ground; most of the pink,
around the marking, more of the white, in the middle of the space;
so few of either, that it appeared to be brown where the clay border
joined.
The antennae were shaped as all of the Attacus group, but larger in
proportion to size, for my biggest Promethea measured only four
and a quarter from tip to tip, and for his inches carried larger
antlers than any Cecropia I ever saw of this measurement, those of
the male being very much larger than the female. In colour they
were similar to the darkest part of the wings, as were the back of
the head, thorax and abdomen. The hair on the back of the thorax
was very long. The face wore a pink flush over brown, the eyes
bright brown, the under thorax covered with long pinkish brown
hairs, and the legs the same. A white stripe ran down each side
of the abdomen, touched with a dot of brownish red wine colour on
the rings. The under part was pinkish wine crossed with a narrow
white line at each segment. The claspers were prominent and sharp.
The finishing touch of the exquisite creation lay in the fact that
in motion, in strong light the red wine shadings of the under side
cast an intangible, elusive, rosy flush over the dark back of the
moth that was the mast delicate and loveliest colour effect I ever
have seen on marking of flower, bird, or animal.
For the first time in all my experience with moths the female was
less than the male.
Even the eggs of this mated pair carried a pinkish white shade and
were stained with brown. They were ovoid in shape and dotted
the screen door in rows. The tiny caterpillars were out eleven
days later and proved to be of the kind that march independently
from their shells without stopping to feed on them. Of every
food offered, the youngsters seemed to prefer lilac leaves; I
remembered that they had passed the winter wrapped in these,
dangling from their twigs, and that the under wings of the male and
much of the female bore a flushing of colour that was lilac, for
what else is red wine veiled with white? So I promptly christened
them, 'The Pride of the Lilacs.' They were said to eat ash, apple
pear, willow, plum, cherry, poplar and many other leaves, but mine
liked lilac, and there was a supply in reach of the door, so they
undoubtedly were lilac caterpillars, for they had nothing else to
eat.
The little fellows were pronouncedly yellow. The black head with
a grey stripe joined the thorax with a yellow band. The body was
yellow with black rings, the anal parts black, the legs pale
greyish yellow. They made their first moult on the tenth day and
when ready to eat again they were stronger yellow than before,
with many touches of black. They moulted four times, each
producing slight changes until the third, when the body took on a
greenish tinge, delicate and frosty in appearance. The heads were
yellow with touches of black, and the anal shield even stronger
yellow, with black. At the last moult there came a touch of red on
the thorax, and of deep blue on the latter part of the body.
In spinning they gummed over the upper surface of a leaf and,
covering it with silk, drew it together so that nothing could be
seen of the work inside. They began spinning some on the
forty-second, some on the forty-third day, when about three inches
in length and plump to bursting. I think at a puncture in the skin
they would have spurted like a fountain. They began spinning at
night and were from sight before I went to them the following
morning. So I hunted a box and packed them away with utmost care.
I selected a box in which some mounted moths had been sent me by a
friend in Louisiana, and when I went to examine my cocoons toward
spring, to my horror I found the contents of the box chopped to
pieces and totally destroyed. Pestiferous little 'clothes' moths
must have infested the box, for there were none elsewhere in the
Cabin. For a while this appeared to be too bad luck; but when
luck turns squarely against you, that is the time to test the
essence and quality of the word 'friend.' So I sat me down and
wrote to my friend, Professor Rowley, of Missouri, and told him
I wanted Promethea for the completion of this book; that I had
an opportunity to make studies of them and my plate was light-struck,
and house-moths had eaten my cocoons. Could he do anything?
To be sure he could. I am very certain he sent me two dozen
'perfectly good' cocoons.
From the abundance of males that have come to seek females of this
species at the Cabin, ample proof seems furnished that they are a
very common Limberlost product; but I never have found, even when
searching for them, or had brought to me a cocoon of this variety,
save the three on one little branch found by Raymond, when he did
not know what they were. Because of the length of spinning which
these caterpillars use to attach their cocoons, they dangle freely
in the wind, and this gives them especial freedom from attack.