MOTHS OF THE LIMBERLOST 



ever occurred again she would quit her job. Such is 

 the confidence of a child that I accepted my loss as an 

 inevitable accident, and tried to be brave to comfort her, 

 although my heart was almost broken. Of course they 

 freed my moth. They never would have dared but that 

 the little mother's couch stood all day empty now, and 

 her chair unused beside it. My disappointment was so 

 deep and far-reaching it made me ill; then they scolded 

 me, and said I had half killed myself carrying that heavy 

 jar in the hot sunshine, although the pain from which 

 I suffered was neither in my arms nor sunburned face. 



So I lost my first Cecropia, and from that day until 

 a woman grown and much of this material secured, in 

 all my field work among the birds, flowers, and animals, 

 I never had seen another. They had taunted me in 

 museums, and been my envy in private collections, but 

 find one, I could not. When in my field work among 

 the birds, so many moths of other families almost had 

 thrust themselves upon me that I began a collection of 

 reproductions of them, I found little difficulty in securing 

 almost anything else. I could picture Sphinx Moths 

 in any position I chose, and Lunas seemed eager to pose 

 for me. A friend carried to me a beautiful tan-coloured 

 Polyphemus with transparent moons hke isinglass set 

 in its wings of softest velvet down, and as for butter- 

 flies, it was not necessary to go afield for them; they came 

 to me. I could pick a Papilio Ajax, that some of my 



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