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.