As I held
the firm, heavy, leaf-rolled cocoons in my hand, I could see the
last chapter sliding over from fourteen to fifteen to make place
for Promethea, the loveliest of the Attacine group, a cousin of
Cecropia. Often I had seen the pictured cocoon, in its neat little,
tight little leaf-covered shelter, and the mounted moths of
scientific collections and museums; I knew their beautiful forms
and remembered the reddish tinge flushing the almost black coat
of the male and the red wine and clay-coloured female with her
elaborate marks, spots, and lines. Right there the book stopped
at leaf-fall early in November to await the outcome of those three
cocoons. If they would yield a pair in the spring, and if that
pair would emerge close enough together to mate and produce fertile
eggs, then by fall of the coming year I would have a complete
life history. That was a long wait, thickly punctuated with `ifs.'
Then the twig was carried to my room and stood in a vase of
intricate workmanship and rare colouring.
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