MOTHS OF THE LIMBERLOST 



cause they would have been in the rain if they had been 

 left out of doors, and conditions should be kept as natural 

 as possible. 



Close time for emergence I became very uneasy, be- 

 cause the conservatory was warm; so I moved them to my 

 sleeping room, the coolest in the cabin, where a fireplace, 

 two big windows and an outside door, always open, pro- 

 vide natural atmospheric conditions, and where I 

 would be sure to see them every day. I hung the twigs 

 over a twine stretched from my dresser to the window 

 sill. One day in May, when the trees were in full bloom, 

 I was working on a tulip bed under an apple tree in the 

 garden, when Molly -Cotton said to me, "How did you 

 get that cocoon in your room wet.'* " 



"I did not water any of the cocoons," I answered. 

 "I have done no sprinkling to-day. If they are wet, 

 it has come from the inside." 



Molly-Cotton dropped her trowel. "One of them was 

 damp on the top before lunch," she cried. "I just now 

 thought of it. The moths are coming!" She started 

 on a run and I followed, but stopped to wash my 

 hands, so she reached them first, and her shout told the 

 news. 



"Hurry!" she cried. "Hurry! One is out, and another 

 is just struggling through!" 



Quickly as I could I stood beside her. One Poly- 

 phemus female, a giant indeed, was clinging to a twig 



250 



