Since,
I have found them spun lengthwise of twigs in a brush heap. The
cocoons of these I had raised were whiter than those of the free
caterpillars, and did not have the leaves fastened on the outside,
but were woven in a nest of leaves, fastened together by threads.
Polyphemus moths are night flyers, and do not feed. I have tried
to tell how beautiful they are, with indifferent success, and they
are common with me. Since I learned them, find their cocoons
easiest to discover. Through the fall and winter, when riding on
trains, I see them dangling from wayside thorn bushes. Once, while
taking a walk with Raymond in late November, he located one on a
thorn tree in a field beside the road, but he has the eyes of an
Indian.
These are the moths that city people can cultivate, for in
Indianapolis, in early December, I saw fully one half as many
Polyphemus cocoons on the trees as there were Cecropia, and I could
have gathered a bushel of them. They have emerged in perfection
for me always, with one exception.
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