The Procesbionary : the Moth 



Here at last is the Moth at the surface. 

 With the deliberate slowness demanded by so 

 delicate an operation, she spreads her bunched 

 wings, extends her antennas and puffs out her 

 fleece. Her costume is a modest one: upper 

 wings grey, striped with a few crinkly brown 

 streaks; under-wings white; thorax covered 

 with thick grey fur; abdomen clad in bright- 

 russet velvet. The last segment has a pale- 

 gold sheen. At first sight it appears bare. 

 It is not, however; but, in place of hairs like 

 those of the other segments, it has, on its dor- 

 sal surface, scales so well assembled and so 

 close together that the whole seems to form a 

 continuous block, like a nugget. 



Let us touch this trinket with the point of 

 a needle. However gently we rub, a multi- 

 tude of scales come off and flutter at the least 

 breath, shining like mica spangles. Their 

 concave form, their shape, an elongated oval, 

 their colouring, white in the lower half but 

 reddish gold in the upper, give them, if we 

 allow for the difference in size, a certain re- 

 semblance to the scales surrounding the heads 

 of some of the centaury tribe. Such is the 

 golden fleece of which the mother will de- 

 spoil herself in order to cover the cylinder of 

 123 



