Moths of the Limberlost Part 2

Sometimes the caterpillar has been stung and bad an egg placed in its skin by a parasite, before pupation. In such case the pupa is destroyed by the developing fly. Throughout one winter I was puzzled by the light weight of what appeared to be a good Polyphemus coc.o.o.n, and at time for emergence amazed by the tearing and scratching inside the coc.o.o.n, until what I think was an Ophion fly appeared. It was honey yellow, had antennae long as its extremely long body, the abdomen of which was curved and the segments set together so as to appear notched. The wings were transparent and the insect it seems is especially designed to attack Polyphemus caterpillars and help check a progress that otherwise might become devastating.

Among the moths that do not feed, the year of their evolution is divided into about seven days for the life of the moth, from fifteen to thirty for the eggs, from five to six weeks for the caterpillar and the remainder of the time in the pupa stage. The rule differs with feeding moths only in that after mating and egg placing they take food and live several months, often until quite heavy frosts have fallen.

One can admire to fullest extent the complicated organism, wondrous colouring, and miraculous life processes in the evolution of a moth, but that is all. Their faces express nothing; their att.i.tudes tell no story. There is the marvellous instinct through which the males locate the opposite s.e.x of their species; but one cannot see instinct in the face of any creature; it must develop in acts. There is no part of their lives that makes such pictures of mother-love as birds and animals afford. The male finds a mate and disappears. The female places her eggs and goes out before her caterpillars break their sh.e.l.ls. The caterpillar transforms to the moth without its consent, the matter in one upbuilding the other.

The entire process is utterly devoid of sentiment, attachment or volition on the part of the creatures involved. They work out a law as inevitable as that which swings suns, moons, and planets in their courses. They are the most fragile and beautiful result of natural law with which I am acquainted.

CHAPTER III The Robin Moth: Cecropia

When only a little child, wandering alone among the fruits and flowers of our country garden, on a dead peach limb beside the fence I found it--my first Cecropia. I was the friend of every bird, flower, and b.u.t.terfly. I carried crumbs to the warblers in the sweetbrier; was lifted for surrept.i.tious peeps at the hummingbird nesting in the honeysuckle; sat within a few feet of the robin in the catalpa; bugged the currant bushes for the phoebe that had built for years under the roof of the corn bin; and fed young blackbirds in the hemlock with worms gathered from the cabbages. I knew how to insinuate myself into the private life of each bird that homed on our farm, and they were many, for we valiantly battled for their protection with every kind of intruder. There were wrens in the knot holes, chippies in the fences, thrushes in the brush heaps, bluebirds in the hollow apple trees, cardinals in the bushes, tanagers in the saplings, fly-catchers in the trees, larks in the wheat, bobolinks in the clover, killdeers beside the creeks, swallows in the chimneys, and martins under the barn eaves. My love encompa.s.sed all feathered and furred creatures.

Every day visits were paid flowers I cared for most. I had been taught not to break the garden blooms, and if a very few of the wild ones were taken, I gathered them carefully, and explained to the plants that I wanted them for my mother because she was so ill she could not come to them any more, and only a few touching her lips or lying on her pillow helped her to rest, and made vivid the fields and woods when the pain was severe.

My love for the b.u.t.terflies took on the form of adoration. There was not a delicate, gaudy, winged creature of day that did not make so strong an appeal to my heart as to be almost painful. It seemed to me that the most exquisite thoughts of G.o.d for our pleasure were materialized in their beauty. My soul always craved colour, and more brilliancy could be found on one b.u.t.terfly wing than on many flower faces. I liked to slip along the bloom-bordered walks of that garden and stand spell-bound, watching a black velvet b.u.t.terfly, which trailed wings painted in white, red, and green, as it clambered over a clump of sweet-williams, and indeed, the flowers appeared plain compared with it! b.u.t.terflies have changed their habits since then. They fly so high! They are all among the treetops now. They used to flit around the cinnamon pinks, larkspur, ragged-robins and tiger lilies, within easy reach of little fingers, every day. I called them 'flying flowers,' and it was a pretty conceit, for they really were more delicate in texture and brighter in colouring than the garden blooms.

Having been taught that G.o.d created the heavens, earth and all things therein, I understood it to mean a literal creation of each separate thing and creature, as when my father cut down a tree and hewed it into a beam. I would spend hours sitting so immovably among the flowers of our garden that the b.u.t.terflies would mistake me for a plant and alight on my head and hands, while I strove to conceive the greatness of a Being who could devise and colour all those different b.u.t.terfly wings. I would try to decide whether He created the birds, flowers, or b.u.t.terflies first; ultimately coming to the conclusion that He put His most exquisite material into the b.u.t.terflies, and then did the best He could with what remained, on the birds and flowers.

In my home there was a cellar window on the south, covered with wire screening, that was my individual property. Father placed a box beneath it so that I could reach the sill easily, and there were very few b.u.t.terflies or insects common to eastern North America a specimen of which had not spent some days on that screen, feasted on leaves and flowers, drunk from saucers of sweetened water, been admired and studied in minutest detail, and then set free to enjoy life as before. With Whitman, "I never was possessed with a mania for killing things." I had no idea of what families they were, and I supplied my own names. The Monarch was the Brown Velvet; the Viceroy was his Cousin; the Argynnis was the Silver Spotted; and the Papilio Ajax was the Ribbon b.u.t.terfly, in my category. There was some thought of naming Ajax, Dolly Varden; but on close inspection it seemed most to resemble the gayly striped ribbons my sisters wore.

I was far afield as to names, but in later years with only a glance at any specimen I could say, "Oh, yes! I always have known that.

It has buff-coloured legs, clubbed antennae with buff tips, wings of purplish brown velvet with escalloped margins, a deep band of buff lightly traced with black bordering them, and a p.r.o.nounced point close the apex of the front pair. When it came to books, all they had to teach me were the names. I had captured and studied b.u.t.terflies, big, little, and with every conceivable variety of marking, until it was seldom one was found whose least peculiarity was not familiar to me as my own face; but what could this be?

It clung to the rough bark, slowly opening and closing large wings of grey velvet down, margined with bands made of shades of grey, tan, and black; banded with a broad stripe of red terra cotta colour with an inside margin of white, widest on the back pair.

Both pairs of wings were decorated with half-moons of white, outlined in black and strongly flushed with terra cotta; the front pair near the outer margin had oval markings of blue-black, shaded with grey, outlined with half circles of white, and secondary circles of black. When the wings were raised I could see a face of terra cotta, with small eyes, a broad band of white across the forehead, and an abdomen of terra cotta banded with snowy white above, and spotted with white beneath. Its legs were hairy, and the antennae antlered like small branching ferns.

Of course I thought it was a b.u.t.terfly, and for a time was too filled with wonder to move. Then creeping close, the next time the wings were raised above its body, with the nerveless touch of a robust child I captured it.

I was ten miles from home, but I had spent all my life until the last year on that farm, and I knew and loved every foot of it. To leave it for a city home and the confinement of school almost had broken my heart, but it really was time for me to be having some formal education. It had been the greatest possible treat to be allowed to return to the country for a week, but now my one idea was to go home with my treasure. None of my people had seen a sight like that. If they had, they would have told me.

Borrowing a two-gallon stone jar from the tenant's wife, I searched the garden for flowers sufficiently rare for lining. Nothing so pleased me as some gorgeous deep red peony blooms. Never having been allowed to break the flowers when that was my mother's home, I did not think of doing it because she was not there to know.

I knelt and gathered all the fallen petals that were fresh, and then spreading my ap.r.o.n on the ground, jarred the plant, not harder than a light wind might, and all that fell in this manner it seemed right to take. The selection was very pleasing, for the yellow glaze of the jar, the rich red of the petals, and the grey velvet of my prize made a picture over which I stood trembling in delight. The moth was promptly christened the Half-luna, because my father had taught me that luna was the moon, and the half moons on the wings were its most prominent markings.

The tenant's wife wanted me to put it in a pasteboard box, but I stubbornly insisted on having the jar, why, I do not know, but I suppose it was because my father's word was gospel to me, and he had said that the best place to keep my specimens was the cellar window, and I must have thought the jar the nearest equivalent to the cellar. The Half-luna did not mind in the least, but went on lazily opening and closing its wings, yet making no attempt to fly.

If I had known what it was, or anything of its condition, I would have understood that it had emerged from the coc.o.o.n that morning, and never had flown, but was establis.h.i.+ng circulation preparatory to taking wing. Being only a small, very ignorant girl, the greatest thing I knew for sure was what I loved.

Tying my sunbonnet over the top of the jar, I stationed myself on the horse block at the front gate. Every pa.s.sing team was hailed with lifted hand, just as I had seen my father do, and in as perfect an imitation of his voice as a scared little girl making her first venture alone in the big world could muster, I asked, "Which way, Friend?"

For several long, hot hours people went to every point of the compa.s.s, but at last a bony young farmer, with a fat wife, and a fatter baby, in a big wagon, were going to my city, and they said I might ride. With quaking heart I handed up my jar, and climbed in, covering all those ten miles in the June suns.h.i.+ne, on a board laid across e wagon bed, tightly clasping the two-gallon jar in my aching arms. The farmer's wife was quite concerned about me. She asked if I had b.u.t.ter, and I said, "Yes, the kind that flies."

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 ap.r.o.n 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 b.u.t.terfly 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 b.u.t.terfly 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 ma.s.s 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 b.u.t.terfly, 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 b.u.t.terfly, and I've broken it all to pieces. It must have taken G.o.d 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 b.u.t.terfly, 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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 gra.s.s? I've killed the most beautiful b.u.t.terfly, 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, "G.o.d 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 crus.h.i.+ng a b.u.t.terfly 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 astonis.h.i.+ng indifference, and were far more concerned over the state of my blistered face. I would not hear of putting my Half-luna on the bas.e.m.e.nt 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 suns.h.i.+ne, 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 isingla.s.s set in its wings of softest velvet down, and as for b.u.t.terflies, 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 pa.s.sion 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 b.u.t.terfly 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 b.u.t.terfly, 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, surpa.s.sed 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 gla.s.s, 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 suns.h.i.+ne.

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 G.o.d 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 coc.o.o.n. 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 coc.o.o.ns 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 coc.o.o.n 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 coc.o.o.ns 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 coc.o.o.ns, 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 coc.o.o.ns 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 coc.o.o.n 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 coc.o.o.n heaving with the movements of the second.