But female moths seldom fly until they have finished egg
depositing, and this one was transferred with no trouble to the spot
on which I had focused. On the back wall of the Cabin, among some
wild roses, she was placed on a log, and immediately raised her wings,
and started for the shade of the vines. The picture made of her as
she walked is beautiful. After I had secured several studies she was
returned to the library curtain, where she resumed egg placing.
These were not counted, but there, were at least three hundred at a
rough guess.
I had thought her lovely in gas light, but day brought forth marvels
and wonders. When a child, I used to gather cowslips in a bed of
lush swale, beside a little creek at the foot of a big hill on our farm.
At the summit was an old orchard, and in a brush-heap a brown thrush
nested. From a red winter pearmain the singer poured out his own heart
in song, and then reproduced the love ecstasy of every other bird of
the orchard. That moth's wings were so exactly the warm though
delicate yellow of the flowers I loved, that as I looked at it I could
feel my bare feet sinking in the damp ooze, smell the fragrance of the
buttercups, and hear again the ripple of the water and the mating
exultation of the brown thrush.
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