The book proves my indebtedness to the
Deacon and to Molly-Cotton. I also owe thanks to Bob Burdette Black,
the oldest and warmest friend of my bird work, for many fine moths
and cocoons, and to Professor R. R. Rowley for the laborious task
of scientifically criticizing this book and with unparalleled
kindness lending a helping hand where an amateur stumbled.
CHAPTER II MOTHS, EGGS, CATERPILLARS, WINTER QUARTERS
If you are too fastidious to read this chapter, it will be your
permanent loss, for it contains the life history, the evolution of
one of the most amazingly complicated and delicately beautiful
creatures in existence. There are moths that come into the world,
accomplish the functions that perpetuate their kind, and go out,
without having taken any nourishment. There are others that feed
and live for a season. Some fly in the morning, others in the glare
of noon, more in the evening, and the most important class of big,
exquisitely lovely ones only at night. This explains why so many
people never have seen them, and it is a great pity, for the nocturnal,
non-feeding moths are birdlike in size, flower-like in rare and
complicated colouring, and of downy, silent wing.
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