MOTHS OF THE LIMBERLOST 



been very careful in making studies to give each one its 

 proper environment when placing it before my camera. 

 Of all the flowers in our garden, Celeus prefers the holly- 

 hocks. At least it comes to them oftenest and remains 

 at them longest. But it moves continually and flies 

 so late that a picture of it has been a task. After years 

 of fruitless effort, I made one passable snapshot early in 

 July, while the light was sufficiently strong that a 

 printable picture could be had by intensifying the 

 plate, and one good time exposure as a Celeus, with 

 half folded wings, clambered over a hollyhock, pos- 

 sibly hunting a spot on which to deposit an egg or two. 

 The hollyhock painting of this chapter is from this 

 study. The flowers were easy but it required a second 

 trial to do justice to the complicated markings of the moth. 

 This evening lover and strong flyer, with its swal- 

 low-like sweep of wing, comes into the colour schemes 

 of nature with the otter, that at rare times thrusts 

 a sleek gray head from the river, with the gray- 

 brown cottontails that bound across the stubble, 

 and the coots that herald dawn in the marshes. Ex- 

 actly the shades, and almost the markings of its wings 

 can be found on very old rail fences. This lint shows 

 lighter colour, and even gray when used in the house- 

 building of wasps and orioles, but I know places in the 

 country where I could carve an almost perfectly shaded 

 Celeus wing from a weather-beaten old snake fence rail. 



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