MOTHS OF THE LIMBERLOST 



an enlargement, and failure heaped on failure. When I 

 was three rods away, those doves tore from the nest until 

 I was afraid they would break their eggs. A joke on me 

 is as good as on any one else, and the point to this is that 

 I was trying to make these studies at times when the 

 male bird was brooding, while the female went to hunt 

 food and drink. After days of as difficult field work as 

 I ever endured, I made exposures on both those female 

 doves in the afternoon. The one on the river bank sat 

 for a four foot focus, after an hour's work; and the one 

 in the orchard endured three, after a half day's cautious 

 approach. Perhaps I saw so much dove gray on that 

 moth because I had seen it all day for days, and dreamed 

 of it in my sleep. 



This same dove gray coloured the basic third of the 

 fore- wings. Then they were crossed with a band only a 

 little less in width, of rich cinnamon brown. There was a 

 narrow wavy line of lighter brown, and the remaining 

 third of the wing was paler, but with darker shadings. 

 These four distinct colour divisions were exquisitely 

 blended, and on the darkest band, near the costa, was a 

 tiny white half moon. The under sides of the fore-wings 

 were a delicate brownish gray, with heavy flushings of a 

 purplish pink, a most beautiful colour. 



The back wings were dove colour near the abdomen, 

 more of a mouse colour around the edges, and beginning 

 strongly at the base, and spreading in lighter shade over 



309 



