MOTHS OF THE LIMBERLOST 



from the west, flying high, above the treetops in fact, 

 and from the direction of a Uttle tree-filled plot called 

 Studabaker's woods. Some of them we could distinguish 

 almost a block away coming straight toward the Cabin, 

 and saihng around the eastern corner with the precision 

 of hounds on a hot trail. How they knew, the Almighty 

 knows; I do not pretend to; but that there was odour 

 distilled by that one female, practically imperceptible to 

 us (she merely smelled like a moth), yet of such strength 

 as to penetrate screen, vines, and roses and reach her 

 kind a block away, against considerable breeze, I never 

 shall believe. 



When it comes to the statement that moths have a 

 skunklike power of ejecting odours so disagreeable as 

 to protect them from mice, birds, and bats, it appeals 

 to me as amusing. Of course I have taken my punish- 

 ment for locating the cows with "grand-daddy-long- 

 legs," and had my red raspberries flavoured by the pass- 

 ing of the "stink-bug," so I admit the peculiar odour of 

 several forms of insects. But when we consider the 

 unmentionable matter that a hungry mouse wiU eat, 

 the outbuildings it infests, the drain pipes and sewers 

 through which it will travel; when we see some of our 

 most exquisite songsters placidly dining from the fresh 

 droppings of cattle and horses in the fields; when we 

 remember the high-piled excrement and the odour of a 

 bat lodge in a hollow tree, where these creatures sleep all 



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