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In June of 1911, close six o'clock in the evening, I sat on the front veranda of the Cabin, in company with my family, and watched three moths sail past us and around the corner, before I remembered that on the screen of the music-room window to the east there was a solitary female Promethea moth, that day emerged from a cocoon sent me by Professor Rowley.
Broad antennae, slenderer abdomen, and the claspers used in holding the female in mating, smaller wings and more brilliant markings are the signs by which the male can be told in most cases. In several of the Attacine group, notably Promethea, the male and female differ widely in markings and colour. Among the other non-feeders the difference is slight.
The encircling silken bonds of Promethea and Cynthia cocoons will account for some; others will puzzle us until we have found the traces of some insect foe, whose girdling has killed the twig and thus prevented the leaf from falling at the usual time; some may be simply mechanical causes, where a broken twig crotch has fallen athwart another stem in the course of its downward fall.
"Is this the kind of thing you are looking for?" he asked bashfully, as he presented a wild cherry twig. "Oh Pete, that's a Promethea! I didn't even hope to find one." "What's the bird like?" asked Pete. "Almost black wings," said Elnora, "with clay-coloured edges, and the most wonderful wine-coloured flush over the under side if it's a male, and stronger wine above and below if it's a female.
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.
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.
After the females have finished depositing their eggs, they cling to branches, vines or walls a few days, fly aimlessly at night and then pass out without ever having taken food. Cecropia has several `Cousins, Promethea, Angulifera, Gloveri, and Cynthia, that vary slightly in marking and more in colour. All are smaller than Cecropia. The male of Promethea is the darkest moth of the Limberlost.
Philip turned and was busily hunting moths on the raspberry bushes when they reached the gate. And so excellent are the rewards of attending your own business, that he found a Promethea on a lilac in a corner; a moth of such rare wine-coloured, velvety shades that it almost sent Mrs. Comstock to her knees again.
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.
This is the rule with all Promethea cocoons I ever have seen. Polyphemus selects a cluster of leaves very frequently thorn, and weaves its cocoon against three, drawing them together and spinning a support the length of the stems, so that when the leaf is ready to fall the cocoon is safely anchored.
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