The illustration of every moth book I ever have seen, that attempted coloured reproduction, proved by the shrivelled bodies and unnatural position of the wings, that it had been painted from objects mounted from weeks to years in private collections or museums.  A lifeless moth fades rapidly under the most favourable conditions.  A moth at eight days of age, in the last stages of decline, is from four to six distinct shades lighter in colour than at six hours from the cocoon, when it is dry, and ready for flight.  As soon as circulation stops, and the life juices evaporate from the wings and body, the colour grows many shades paler.  If exposed to light, moths soon fade almost beyond recognition.

I make no claim to being an entomologist; I quite agree with the “Autocrat of the Breakfast Table*”, that “the subject is too vast for any single human intelligence to grasp.”  If my life depended upon it I could not give the scientific name of every least organ and nerve of a moth, and as for wrestling with the thousands of tiny species of day and night or even attempting all the ramifications of—­say the alluringly beautiful Catocalae family—­ life is too short, unless devoted to this purpose alone.  But if I frankly confess my limitations, and offer the book to my nature-loving friends merely as an introduction to the most exquisite creation of the swamp; and the outside history, as it were, of the evolution of these creatures from moth to moth again, surely no one can feel defrauded.  Since the publication of “A Girl of the Limberlost"**, I have received hundreds of letters asking me to write of my experiences with the lepidoptera of the swamp.  This book professes to be nothing more.

<<*Dec 1996 [aofbtxxx.xxx]751 Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, Oliver Wendell Holmes>>

<<**April 1994 [limbr10x.xxx] 125 A Girl of the Limberlost, by Gene Stratton-Porter>>

Because so many enemies prey upon the large night moths in all stages, they are nowhere sufficiently numerous to be pests, or common enough to be given local names, as have the birds.  I have been compelled to use their scientific names to assist in identification, and at times I have had to resort to technical terms, because there were no other.  Frequently I have written of them under the names by which I knew them in childhood, or that we of Limberlost Cabin have bestowed upon them.

There is a wide gulf between a Naturalist and a Nature Lover.  A Naturalist devotes his life to delving into stiff scientific problems concerning everything in nature from her greatest to her most minute forms.  A Nature Lover works at any occupation and finds recreation in being out of doors and appreciating the common things of life as they appeal to his senses.