MOTHS OF THE LIMBERLOST 



delaying emergence until the season is sufficiently ad- 

 vanced to provide the natural, outdoor background for 

 each species., then carrying them to it and inducing 

 them to pose naturally. I frankly admit that I consider 

 painstaking work, extending over a year in most instances, 

 elevates these illustrations to the dignity of studies. I 

 plead guilty to the use of an anaesthetic in this chapter 

 onl}' to show the tongue extension of Carolina, because 

 it is the extremest with which I am acquainted; and to 

 coaxing wide wing sweep with the camel's-hair brush; 

 otherwise either the fact that my subjects are too close 

 emergence ever to have taken flight, or sex attraction 

 alone holds them. 



If you do not discover love running through every 

 line of this text and see it shining from the face of each 

 study and painting, you do not read aright and your 

 eyes need attention. Again and again to the protests 

 of my family, I have made answer, 



" To work we love we rise betimes, and go to it with delight." 

 From the middle of ^Nlay to the end of June of the year 

 I was most occupied with this book, my room was filled 

 with cocoons and pupa cases. The encased moths I 

 had reason to believe were on the point of appearing lay 

 on a chair beside my bed or a tray close my pillow. 

 That month I did not average two hours of sleep in a 

 night, and had less in the daytime. I not only arose 

 "betimes," but at any time I heard a scratching and 



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