MOTHS OF THE LIMBERLOST 



have infested the box, for there were none elsewhere in 

 the Cabin. 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. 

 Could he do anything.'^ To be sure he could. I am very 

 certain he sent me two dozen "perfectly good" cocoons. 



I pinned them on a heavy piece of corrugated paste- 

 board and they emerged in bunches. It was with the 

 first of these to appear, that I had the experience with free 

 males locating a confined female, recorded in the second 

 chapter. From these living moths as they emerged, I 

 made studies until I impoverished myself on plates. 

 When it came to painting, my old light-struck plate of 

 my first study was the most pleasing pose of all to me, 

 so as I could paint out the light, I used a print from that 

 negative for outline and these moths for colour-guides. 



From the abundance of males that have come to seek 

 females of this species at the Cabin, ample proof seems 

 furnished that they are a very common Limberlost prod- 

 uct; but I never have found, even when searching for 

 them, or had brought to me a cocoon of this variety, save 

 the three on one little branch found by Raymond, when 



332 



