218 THE BOOK OF A NATURALIST 



pleasant talk about these shy, beautiful and (to 

 us) harmless creatures. I am speaking of adders 

 now; I had not yet heard of his predilection for 

 the great moth; when he spoke of this second 

 favourite I begged him to show me a specimen or 

 two. Turning to his wife, who was present and 

 shared his queer tastes, he told her to go and get 

 me some. She left the room, and returned by and 

 by with a large cardboard box, such as milliners 

 and dressmakers use; removing the lid, she raised 

 it above my head and emptied the contents over 

 me a shower of living, shivering, fluttering, 

 squeaking or creaking death's-head moths! In a 

 moment they were all over me, from my head 

 right down to my feet, not attempting to fly, but 

 running, quivering, and shaking their wings, so that 

 I had a bath and feast of them. 



At that moment it mattered not that I was a 

 stranger there, in the library or study of a country 

 house, with those two looking on and laughing at 

 my plight. It is what we feel that matters: I 

 might have been standing in some wilderness never 

 trodden by human foot, myself an unhuman solitary, 

 and merely by willing it I had drawn those beautiful 

 beings of the dark to me, charming them as with 

 a flowery fragrance from their secret hiding-places 

 in a dim world of leaves to gather upon and cover 

 me over with their downy, trembling, mottled grey 

 and rich yellow velvet wings. 



Even this fascinating experience did not wholly 

 satisfy me: nothing, I said, would satisfy me short 



