I have undertaken to describe some very difficult things, but I would not attempt to portray my feelings, and three days later there was no change.  It was in the height of my season of field work, and I had several extremely interesting series of bird studies on hand, and many miscellaneous subjects.  In those days some pictures were secured that I then thought, and yet feel, will live, but nothing mattered to me.  There was a standing joke among my friends that I never would be satisfied with my field work until I had made a study of a ‘Ha-ha bird,’ but I doubt if even that specimen would have lifted the gloom of those days.  Everything was a drag, and frequently I would think over it all in detail, and roundly bless myself for taking a prize so rare, to me at least, into the open.

The third day stands lurid in my memory.  It was the hottest, most difficult day of all my years of experience afield.  The temperature ranged from 104 to 108 in the village, and in quarries open to the east, flat fields, and steaming swamps it certainly could have been no cooler.  With set cameras I was working for a shot at a hawk that was feeding on all the young birds and rabbits in the vicinity of its nest.  I also wanted a number of studies to fill a commission that was pressing me.  Subjects for several pictures had been found, and exposures made on them when the weather was so hot that the rubber slide of a plate holder would curl like a horseshoe if not laid on a case, and held flat by a camera while I worked.  Perspiration dried, and the landscape took on a sombre black velvet hue, with a liberal sprinkling of gold stars.  I sank into a stupor going home, and an old farmer aroused me, and disentangled my horse from a thicket of wild briers into which it had strayed.  He said most emphatically that if I did not know enough to remain indoors weather like that, my friends should appoint me a `guardeen.’

I reached the village more worn in body and spirit than I ever had been.  I felt that I could not endure another degree of heat on the back of my head, and I was much discouraged concerning my work.  Why not drop it all, and go where there were cool forests and breezes sighing?  Perhaps my studies were not half so good as I thought!  Perhaps people would not care for them!  For that matter, perhaps the editors and publishers never would give the public an opportunity to see my work at all!

I dragged a heavy load up the steps and swung it to the veranda, and there stood almost paralysed.  On the top step, where I could not reach the Cabin door without seeing it, newly emerged, and slowly exercising a pair of big wings, with every gaudy marking fresh with new life, was the finest Cecropia I ever had seen anywhere.  Recovering myself with a start, I had it under my net that had waited twenty years to cover it!  Inside the door I dropped the net, and the moth crept on my fingers.  What luck!  What extra golden luck!  I almost felt that God had been sorry for me, and sent it there to encourage me to keep on picturing the beauties and wonders of His creations for people who could not go afield to see for themselves, and to teach those who could to protect helpless, harmless things for their use and beauty.