MOTHS OF THE LIMBERLOST 



came to books, all they had to teach me were the names. 

 I had captured and studied butterflies, 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 gray velvet down, margined with bands 

 made of shades of gray, 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 gray, 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 butterfly, 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 



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