Books: Moths of the Limberlost
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Gene Stratton Porter >> Moths of the Limberlost
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Any one can identify this caterpillar easily, as it is most
peculiar. There is a purplish pink cast on the head and mouth of
the full-grown caterpillar, and purplish red around the props. The
body is a very light blue-green, faintly tinged with white, and
yellow in places. On the sides are white obliques, or white,
shaded with pink, and at the base of these, a small oval marking.
There is a small short horn on the head. But the distinguishing
mark is a mass of little white granules, scattered all over the
caterpillar. It is so peppered with these, that failure to
identify it is impossible.
These caterpillars pupate in the ground. I knew that, but this
was before I had learned that the caterpillar worked out a hole in
the ground, and the pupa case only touched the earth upon which it
lay. So when my Modesta caterpillar ceased crawling, lay quietly,
turned dark, shrank one half in length, and finally
burst the dead skin, and emerged in a shining dark brown pupa case
two inches long, I got in my work. I did well. A spade full of
garden soil was thoroughly sifted, baked in the oven to kill
parasites and insects, cooled, and put in a box, and the pupa case
buried in it. Every time it rained, I opened the box, and moistened
the earth. Two months after time for emergence, I dug out the pupa
case to find it white with mould. I had no idea what the trouble
was, for I had done much work over that case, and the whole winter
tended it solicitously. It was one of my earliest attempts, and
I never have found another caterpillar, or any eggs, though I
often search the poplars for them.
However, something better happened. I say better, because I think
if they will make honest confession, all people who have gathered
eggs and raised caterpillars from them in confinement, by feeding
cut leaves, will admit that the pupa cases they get, and the moths
they produce are only about half size. The big fine cases and
cocoons are the ones you find made by caterpillars in freedom, or
by those that have passed at least the fourth or fifth moult out
of doors. So it was a better thing for my illustration, and for
my painting, when in June of this year, Raymond, in crossing town
from a ball game, found a large, perfect Modesta female. He
secured her in his hat, and hurried to me. Raymond's hat has had
many wonderful things in it besides his head, and his pockets are
always lumpy with boxes.
Although perfect, she had mated, deposited her eggs, and was
declining. All she wanted was to be left alone, and she would sit
with wings widespread wherever placed. I was in the orchard,
treating myself to some rare big musky red raspberries that are my
especial property, when Raymond came with her. He set her on a
shoot before me, and guarded her while I arranged a camera. She
was the most complacent subject I ever handled outdoors, and did
not make even an attempt to fly. Raymond was supposed to be
watching while I worked, but our confidence in her was so great,
that I paid all my attention to polishing my lenses, and getting
good light, while Raymond gathered berries with one hand, and
promiscuously waved the net over the bushes with the other.
During the first exposure, Modesta was allowed to place and poise
herself as seemed natural. For a second, I used the brush on her
gently, and coaxed her wings into spreading a little wider than was
natural. These positions gave every evidence of being pleasing
and yet I was not satisfied. There was something else in the back
of my head that kept obtruding itself as I walked to the Cabin,
with the beautiful moth clinging to my fingers. I did not feel
quite happy about her, so she was placed in a large box, lined
with corrugated paper, to wait a while until the mist in my brain
cleared, and my nebulous disturbance evolved an idea. It came
slowly. I had a caterpillar long ago, and had investigated the
history of this moth. I asked Raymond where he found her and he
said, "Coming from the game." Now I questioned him about the kind
of a tree, and he promptly answered, "On one of those poplars
behind the schoolhouse."
That was the clue. Instantly I recognized it. A poplar limb was
what I wanted. Its fine, glossy leaf, flattened stem, and smooth
upright twigs made a setting, appropriate, above all others, for
the Modest moth.
I explained the situation to the Deacon, and he had Brenner drive
with him to the Hirschy farm, and help secure a limb from one of
the very few Lombardy poplars of this region. They drove very
fast, and I had to trouble to induce Modesta to clamber over a
poplar twig, and settle. Then by gently stroking, an unusual
wing sweep was secured, because there is a wonderful purple-pink
and a peculiar blue on the back wings.
It has been my experience that the longer a moth of these big
short-lived subjects remains out of doors, the paler its colours
become, and most of them fade rapidly when mounted, if not kept in
the dark. So my Modesta may have been slightly faded, but she
could have been several shades paler and yet appeared most
beautiful to me.
Her head, shoulders, and abdomen were a lovely dove grey; that
soft tan grey, with a warm shade, almost suggestive of pink. I
suppose the reason I thought of this was because at the time two
pairs of doves, one on a heap of driftwood overhanging the river,
and the other in an apple tree in the Aspy orchard a few rods
away, were giving me much trouble, and I had dove grey on my
mind.
This same dove grey coloured the basic third of the fore-wings.
Then they were crossed with a band only a little less in width,
of rich cinnamon brown. There was a narrow wavy line of lighter
brown, and the remaining third of the wing was paler, but with
darker shadings. These four distinct colour divisions were
exquisitely blended, and on the darkest band, near the costa,
was a tiny white half moon. The under sides of the fore-wings
were a delicate brownish grey, with heavy flushings of a purplish
pink, a most beautiful colour.
The back wings were dove colour near the abdomen, more of a mouse
colour around the edges, and beginning strongly at the base, and
spreading in lighter shade over the wing, was the same purplish
pink of the front under-wing, only much stronger. Near the
abdomen, a little below half the length, and adjoining the grey;
each wing had a mark difficult to describe in shape, and of rich
blue colour.
The antennae stood up stoutly, and were of dove grey on one side,
and white on the other. The thorax, legs, and under side of the
abdomen were more of the mouse grey in colour. Over the whole
moth in strong light, there was an almost intangible flushing of
palest purplish pink. It may have shaded through the fore-wing
from beneath, and over the back wing from above. At any rate,
it was there, and so lovely and delicate was the whole colour
scheme, it made me feel that I would give much to see a newly
emerged male of this species. In my childhood my mother called
this colour aniline red.
I once asked a Chicago importer if he believed that Oriental rug
weavers sometimes use these big night moths as colour guides in
their weaving. He said he had heard this, and gave me the freedom
of his rarest rugs. Of course the designs woven into these rugs
have a history, and a meaning for those who understand. There were
three, almost priceless, one of which I am quite sure copied its
greys, terra cotta, and black shades from Cecropia.
There was another, a rug of pure silk, that never could have
touched a floor, or been trusted outside a case, had it been my
property, that beyond all question took its exquisite combinations
of browns and tans with pink lines, and peacock blue designs
from Polyphemus. A third could have been copied from no moth save
Modesta, for it was dove grey, mouse grey, and cinnamon brown,
with the purplish pink of the back wings, and exactly the blue of
their decorations. Had this rug been woven of silk, as the brown
one, that moment would have taught me why people sometimes steal
when they cannot afford to buy. Examination of the stock of any
importer of high grade rugs will convince one who knows moths, that
many of our commonest or their near relatives native to the Orient
are really used as models for colour combinations in rug weaving.
The Herat frequently has moths in its border.
The Modest moth has a wing sweep in large females of from five and
one-half to six inches. In my territory they are very rare,
only a few caterpillars and one moth have fallen to me. This can
be accounted for by the fact that the favourite food tree of the
caterpillar is so scarce, for some reason having become almost
extinct, except in a few cases where they are used for shade.
The eggs are a greyish green, and have the pearly appearance of
almost all moth eggs. On account of white granules, the caterpillar
cannot fail to be identified. The moths in their beautiful soft
colouring are well worth search and study. They are as exquisitely
shaded as any, and of a richness difficult to describe.
CHAPTER XIV The Pride of the Lilacs: Attacus Promethea
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 creatign 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.
CHAPTER XV The King of the Poets: Citheronia Regalis
To the impetuosity of youth I owe my first acquaintance with the
rarest moth of the Limberlost; "not common anywhere," say
scientific authorities. Molly-Cotton and I were driving to
Portland-town, ten miles south of our home. As customary, I was
watching fields, woods, fence corners and roadside in search of
subjects; for many beautiful cocoons and caterpillars, much to be
desired, have been located while driving over the country on
business or pleasure.
With the magnificent independence of the young, Molly-Cotton would
have scouted the idea that she was searching for moths also, but I
smiled inwardly as I noticed her check the horse several times and
scan a wayside bush, or stretch of snake fence. We were approaching
the limits of town, and had found nothing; a slow rain was falling,
and the shimmer on bushes and fences made it difficult to see
objects plainly. Several times I had asked her to stop the horse,
or drive close the fields when I was sure of a moth or caterpillar,
though it was very late, being close the end of August; but we
found only a dry leaf, or some combination that had deceived me.
Just on the outskirts of Portland, beside a grassy ditch and at
the edge of a cornfield, grew a cluster of wild tiger lilies.
The water in the ditch had kept them in flower long past their
bloomtime. On one of the stems there seemed to be a movement.
"Wait a minute!" I cried, and Molly-Cotton checked the horse,
but did not stop, while I leaned forward and scanned the lilies
carefully. What I thought I saw move appeared to be a dry lily
bloom of an orange-red colour, that had fallen and lodged on the
grasses against a stalk.
"It's only a dead lily," I said; "drive on."
"Is there a moth that colour?" asked Molly-Cotton.
"Yes," I replied. "There is an orange-brown species, but it is
rare. I never have seen a living one."
So we passed the lilies. A very peculiar thing is that when one
grows intensely interested in a subject, and works over it, a
sort of instinct, an extra sense as it were, is acquired. Three
rods away, I became certain I had seen something move, so strongly
the conviction swept over me that we had passed a moth. Still, it
was raining, and the ditch was wet and deep.
"I am sorry we did not stop," I said, half to myself, "I can't help
feeling that was a moth."
There is where youth, in all its impetuosity, helped me. If the
girl had asked, "Shall I go back?" in all probability I would
have answered, "No, I must have been mistaken. Drive on!"
Instead, Molly-Cotton, who had straightened herself, and touched up
her horse for a brisk entrance into town, said, "Well, we will just
settle that 'feeling' right here!"
At a trot, she deftly cut a curve in the broad road and drove
back. She drew close the edge of the ditch as we approached the
lilies. As the horse stopped, what I had taken for a fallen lily
bloom, suddenly opened to over five inches of gorgeous red-brown,
canary-spotted wing sweep, and then closed again.
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