They began spinning some on the
forty-second, some on the forty-third day, when about three inches
in length and plump to bursting. I think at a puncture in the skin
they would have spurted like a fountain. They began spinning at
night and were from sight before I went to them the following
morning. So I hunted a box and packed them away with utmost care.
I selected a box in which some mounted moths had been sent me by a
friend in Louisiana, and when I went to examine my cocoons toward
spring, to my horror I found the contents of the box chopped to
pieces and totally destroyed. Pestiferous little 'clothes' moths
must have infested the box, for there were none elsewhere in the
Cabin. For a while this appeared to be too bad luck; but when
luck turns squarely against you, that is the time to test the
essence and quality of the word `friend.' So I sat me down and
wrote to my friend, Professor Rowley, of Missouri, and told him
I wanted Promethea for the completion of this book; that I had
an opportunity to make studies of them and my plate was light-struck,
and house-moths had eaten my cocoons.
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