If they are kept cool enough that they do not emerge until May or June, then you have one of the most exquisite treats nature has in store for you, in watching the damp spot spread on the top of the cocoon where an acid is ejected that cuts and softens the tough fibre, and allows the moth to come pushing through in the full glory of its gorgeous birth. Nowhere in nature can you find such delicate and daintily shaded markings or colours so brilliant and fresh as on the wings of these creatures of night.
After you have learned the markings and colours, and secured pictures if you desire, and they begin to exhibit a restlessness, as soon as it is dusk, release them. They are as well prepared for all life has for them as if they had emerged in the woods. The chances are that they are surer of life at your hands than they would have been if left afield, provided you keep them cool enough that they do not emerge too soon. If you want to photograph them, do it when the wings are fully developed, but before they have flown. They need not be handled; their wings are unbroken; their down covering in place to the last scale; their colours never so brilliant; their markings the plainest they ever will be; their big pursy bodies full of life; and they will climb with perfect confidence on any stick, twig, or limb held before them. Reproductions of them are even more beautiful than those of birds. By all means photograph them out of doors on a twig or leaf that their caterpillars will eat. Moths strengthen and dry very quickly outside in the warm crisp air of May or June, so it is necessary to have some one beside you with a spread net covering them, in case they want to fly before you are ready to make an exposure. In painting this moth the colours always should be copied from a living specimen as soon as it is dry. No other moth of my acquaintance fades so rapidly.
Repeatedly I am asked which I think the most beautiful of these big night moths. I do not know. All of them are indescribably attractive. Whether a pale green moth with purple markings is lovelier than a light yellow moth with heliotrope decorations; or a tan and brown one with pink lines, is a difficult thing to determine. When their descriptions are mastered, and the colour combinations understood, I fancy each person will find the one bearing most of his favourite colour the loveliest. It may be that on account of its artistically cut and coloured trailers, Luna has a touch of grace above any.
CHAPTER VII King of the Hollyhocks: Protoparce Celeus
Protoparce Celeus was the companion of Deilephila Lineata in the country garden where I first studied Nature. Why I was taught that Lineata was a bird, and Celeus a moth, it is difficult to understand, for they appear very similar when poising before flowers. They visit the same blooms, and vary but little in size. The distinction that must have made the difference was that while Lineata kept company with the hummingbirds and fed all day, Celeus came forth at dusk, and flew in the evening and at night. But that did not conclusively prove it a moth, for nighthawks and whip-poor-wills did the same; yet unquestionably they were birds.
Anyway, I always knew Celeus was a moth, and that every big, green caterpillar killed on the tomato vines meant one less of its kind among the flowers. I never saw one of these moths close a tomato or potato vine, a jimson weed or ground cherry, but all my life I have seen their eggs on these plants, first of a pale green closely resembling the under side of the leaves, and if they had been laid some time, a yellow colour. The eggs are not dotted along in lines, or closely placed, but are deposited singly, or by twos, at least very sparsely.
The little caterpillars emerge in about a week, and then comes the process of eating until they grow into the large, green tomato or tobacco worms that all of us have seen. When hatched the caterpillars are green, and have grey caudal horns similar to Lineata. After eating for four or five days, they cast their skins. This process is repeated three or four times, when the full-grown caterpillars are over four inches long, exactly the colour of a green tomato, with pale blue and yellow markings of beautiful shades, the horns blue-black; and appearing sharp enough to inflict a severe wound.
Like all sphinx caterpillars Celeus is perfectly harmless; but this horn, in connexion with the habit the creatures have of clinging to the vines with the back feet, raising the head and striking from side to side, makes people very sure they can bite or sting, or inflict some serious hurt. So very vigorous are they in self-defence when disturbed, that robins and cuckoos are the only birds I ever have seen brave enough to pick them until the caterpillars loosen their hold and drop to the ground, where they are eaten with evident relish.
One cuckoo of my experience that nested in an old orchard, adjoining a potato patch, frequently went there caterpillar-hunting, and played havoc with one wherever found. The shy, deep wood habits of the cuckoo prevent it from coming close houses and into gardens, but robins will take these big caterpillars from tomato vines. However, they go about it rather gingerly, and the work of reducing one to non-resistance does not seem to be at all coveted. Most people exhibit symptoms of convulsions at sight of one. Yet it is a matter of education. I have seen women kiss and fondle cats and dogs, one snap from which would result in disfiguration or horrible death, and seem not to be able to get enough of them. But they were quite equal to a genuine faint if contact were suggested with a perfectly harmless caterpillar, a creature lacking all means of defence, save this demonstration of throwing the head.
When full-fed the caterpillars enter the earth to pupate, and on the fifteenth of October, 1906, only the day before I began this chapter, the Deacon, in digging worms for a fishing trip to the river, found a pupa case a yard from the tomato vines, and six inches below the surface. He came to my desk, carrying on a spade a ball of damp earth larger than a quart bowl. With all care we broke this as nearly in halves as possible and found in the centre a firm, oval hole, the size and shape of a hen's egg, and in the opening a fine fresh pupa case.