The Chorus of the Forest 



beauty is the excuse for its being, in this book at 

 least. Really it seems as if that might be its best 

 reason for appearing in the forest as well. 



The big delicate moth of deep wood must enter 

 on the same ground, for no other among wood folk 

 is so quiet. The only music it could be said to make The 

 is the chorus of delighted exclamation that greets 1 ^ ot | 1 . of 



*^ the Moon 



its every appearance before humanity; music by 

 proxy, as it were, for the moth is the stillest crea- 

 ture. The exercising imago, walled in its cocoon, 

 among the leaves of earth, makes more sound 

 than the emerged moth. There is a faint noise of 

 tearing as the inner case is broken and the tough 

 cocoon cut for emergence. Once in the air and 

 light, if those exquisite wings make a sound it is 

 too faint for mortal ears to hear. 



June is the time for appreciative people to sing 

 in praise of the moths, but sometimes they are 

 double-brooded and specimens exact their share of 

 worship in August, as did the beautiful pair I 

 found clinging to a walnut tree in the forest. Xo 

 other moth is so exquisitely shaped or of such deli- 

 cate shades. The female is a little larger, her an- 

 tennas are narrower, and her colors paler than the 

 male's. The white violet is not of purer white than 

 his body; his crisp, long-trailed wings of a bluish 

 pale-green, faintly edged with light yellow and set 

 with small transparent markings, and his legs and 

 feet and the heavy fore-rib of the front wings are 

 59 



