IN FEATHERS AND FUR. 
223 
AN OBJECT OF TERROR. 
Yes, this Moth — innocent and harmless as he looks, and as he 
is, too — has long been an object of terror to the ignorant, merely 
because of the curious marks he has on his back. These marks look 
like a skull with the crossed bones under it, and the innocent Moth is 
regarded as the messenger of pestilence or trouble of some sort, and it 
has thrown a whole country into consternation. Some people have 
even believed it was a witch, and that it had the terrible habit of 
whispering into the ear of human witches the name of any person 
who was going to die. 
All this is, of course, perfectly absurd. The Moth is far more 
harmless than the beetles I have been telling you about, and though 
