For a long time he was quiet, then he cautiously peeped out.  After a while he ventured to the ground, raced to a dead stump, and sitting on it, barked and scolded with all his might.  Then he darted home again.  When he had repeated this performance several times, the idea became apparent.  There was some danger to be defied in Rainbow Bottom, but not a sound must be made from his home.  The bark of a dog hurried me to the fence in time to see some hunters passing in the bottom, but I thanked mercy they were on the opposite side of the river and it was not probable they would wade, so my birds would not be disturbed.  When the squirrel felt that he must bark and chatter, or burst with tense emotions, he discreetly left his mate and nest.  I did some serious thinking on the `instinct’ question.  He might choose a hollow log for his home by instinct, or eat certain foods because hunger urged him, but could instinct teach him not to make a sound where his young family lay?  Without a doubt, for this same reason, the cardinal sang from every tree and bush around Horseshoe Bend, save the sumac where his mate hovered their young.

The matter presented itselfin this way.  The squirrel has feet, and he runs with them.  He has teeth, and he eats with them.  He has lungs, and he breathes with them.  Every organ of his interior has its purpose, and is used to fulfil it.  His big, prominent eyes come from long residence in dark hollows.  His bushy tail helps him in long jumps from tree to tree.  Every part of his anatomy is created, designed and used to serve some purpose, save only his brain, the most complex and complicated part of him.  Its only use and purpose is to form one small ’tidbit ’ for the palate of the epicure!  Like Sir Francis, who preached a sermon to the birds, I found me delivering myself of a lecture to the squirrels, birds, and moths of Sunshine Hill.  The final summing up was, that the squirrel used his feet, teeth, eyes and tail; that could be seen easily, and by his actions it could be seen just as clearly that he used his brain also.

There was not a Thysbe in front of the lens, so picking up a long cudgel I always carry afield, and going quietly to surrounding thistles, I jarred them lightly with it, and began rounding up the Hemaris family in the direction of the camera.  The trick was a complete success.  Soon I had an exposure on two.  After they had faced the camera once, and experienced no injury, like the birds, they accepted it as part of the landscape.  The work was so fascinating, and the pictures on the ground glass so worth while, that before I realized what I was doing, half a dozen large plates were gone, and for this reason, work with the cardinals that day ended at noon.  This is why I feel that at times in bird work the moths literally `thrust themselves’ upon me.

CHAPTER XIII The Modest Moth:  Triptogon Modesta