“Alas!” sighed a voice in the corner. “I haven’t any to shed—that is, in the middle of my body.”
Ruth turned as Mr. Looper, otherwise known as the measuring worm, made this remark. She would have asked a question, for Mr. Looper, rearing his head after his own queer fashion, seemed quite ready to talk, but the sphinx stopped her.
“This is not the time to talk about individual legs,” he said. “We are trying to get at general differences. Now there are certain ways in which all moths differ from all butterflies.”
“I should say so,” said Miss Papilio, a handsome tiger swallowtail. “Moths have short, stout bodies, and ours are slender.” And Miss Papilio circled above them so that all might admire her delicate body and the beauty of her tawny yellow wings, with their gray bands and stripes, and their ends pointed in true swallowtail fashion.
“And here is another difference,” she added, coming to rest with her wings folded together vertically. “We always carry our wings so when we are not flying. You moths hold yours horizontally, or sloping. Never upward.”
“Well, that’s true,” said the sphinx, “and you know we generally have beautiful feathery antennæ, though I, and a few others, are an exception to that rule, but you butterflies can boast only very thread-like antennæ, with a knob at the end.”
“Enough about that subject,” spoke up Miss Papilio. “What I am wondering about is why moths like to fly at night, or in the twilight. Now, butterflies must have sunshine.”
“We love the cool, soft night, I can’t tell you why,” answered the sphinx, “and we sleep through the noisy day.”
“But it is so dangerous to sleep as you do, when birds and other nuisances are up and doing.”
“Well, birds are pests, there is no doubt about it, and if it hadn’t been for them we insects would have possessed the earth long ago, but you forget, we always choose a place that is nearly the colour of ourselves, and we look so much like our surroundings that it would take a sharp eye to find us. We are not brightly coloured, as a rule, like the butterflies, or if we wear gay colours at all it is usually on our hind wings, which we hide under the fore wings. Now the general remarks being made, the audience may view the exhibits and hear their individual histories.”