conditions. A moth at eight days of age, in the last stages of
decline, is from four to six distinct shades lighter in colour
than at six hours from the cocoon, when it is dry, and ready
for flight. As soon as circulation stops, and the life juices
evaporate from the wings and body, the colour grows many shades paler.
If exposed to light, moths soon fade almost beyond recognition.

I make no claim to being an entomologist; I quite agree with the
"Autocrat of the Breakfast Table*", that "the subject is too vast
for any single human intelligence to grasp." If my life depended
upon it I could not give the scientific name of every least organ
and nerve of a moth, and as for wrestling with the thousands of
tiny species of day and night or even attempting all the
ramifications of--say the alluringly beautiful Catocalae family--
life is too short, unless devoted to this purpose alone. But if
I frankly confess my limitations, and offer the book to my
nature-loving friends merely as an introduction to the most
exquisite creation of the swamp; and the outside history, as it
were, of the evolution of these creatures from moth to moth again,
surely no one can feel defrauded. Since the publication of
"A Girl of the Limberlost"**, I have received hundreds of letters
asking me to write of my experiences with the lepidoptera of the
swamp. This book professes to be nothing more.

<<*Dec 1996 [aofbtxxx.xxx]751 Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, Oliver
Wendell Holmes>>

<<**April 1994 [limbr10x.xxx] 125 A Girl of the Limberlost, by Gene
Stratton-Porter>>