MOTHS OF THE LIMBERLOST 



year snatch only a brief time afield, for rest and recrea- 

 tion? What of the masses of men and women whose 

 daily application to the work of life makes vacation 

 study a burden, or whose business has so broken the 

 habit of study that concentration is distasteful if not 

 impossible? These people number in the ratio of a 

 million to one Naturalist. They would be delighted 

 to learn the simplest name i30ssible for the creatures 

 they or their friends find afield, and the markings, 

 habits, and characteristics by which they can be iden- 

 tified. They do not care in the least for species and 

 minute detail concerning anatomy, couched in re- 

 sounding Latin and Greek terms they cannot possibly 

 remember. 



The more enthusiastic buy a w^ork on moths and at 

 sight of the colourless pinned specimens used for most 

 illustration, and the scientific impossibility of the text, 

 for their purpose, they abandon it at the first chapter. 

 They want a book that will teach them how to identify 

 the moths they find, explain whether they are creatures 

 of light or darkness, whether they feed or accomplish 

 their mission without nourishment, where it is probable 

 they can be found, what their habits are, how to identify 

 their eggs and caterpillars, whether to look for their 

 winter quarters in a cocoon on a twig or outbuilding, under 

 the bark of a tree, among the leaves of earth, or in a 

 case in a hole in the ground; that will give to them a 



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