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The second one had its front feet and head out, and was struggling frantically to free its shoulders. A fresh wet spot on the top of another cocoon, where the moth had ejected the acid with which it is provided to soften the spinning, was heaving with the pushing head of the third. Molly-Cotton was in sympathy with the imprisoned moths.
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.
Then I gently lifted a leaf, carried it outdoors and, in full light, reproduced the female in the position in which she deposited her eggs, even in the act of placing them. Of course, Molly-Cotton stood beside with a net in one hand to guard, and an umbrella in the other to shade the moth, except at the instant of exposure; but she made no movement indicative of flight.
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.
One day in May, when the trees were in full bloom, I was working on a tulip bed under an apple tree in the garden, when Molly-Cotton said to me, "How did you get that cocoon in your room wet?" "I did not water any of the cocoons," I answered. "I have done no sprinkling today. If they are wet, it has come from the inside." Molly-Cotton dropped her trowel.
I polished the lenses, focused anew on the tree, marked the limits of exposure, inserted a plate, and had everything ready. Then I brought out the female, Molly-Cotton walking beside me hovering her with a net. The moth climbed from the twig to the tree, and clung there, her wings spread flat, at times setting them quivering in a fluttering motion, or raising them.
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.
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. 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.
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.
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.
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