The little fellows were pronouncedly yellow.  The black head with a grey stripe joined the thorax with a yellow band.  The body was yellow with black rings, the anal parts black, the legs pale greyish yellow.  They made their first moult on the tenth day and when ready to eat again they were stronger yellow than before, with many touches of black.  They moulted four times, each producing slight changes until the third, when the body took on a greenish tinge, delicate and frosty in appearance.  The heads were yellow with touches of black, and the anal shield even stronger yellow, with black.  At the last moult there came a touch of red on the thorax, and of deep blue on the latter part of the body.

In spinning they gummed over the upper surface of a leaf and, covering it with silk, drew it together so that nothing could be seen of the work inside.  They began spinning some on the forty-second, some on the forty-third day, when about three inches in length and plump to bursting.  I think at a puncture in the skin they would have spurted like a fountain.  They began spinning at night and were from sight before I went to them the following morning.  So I hunted a box and packed them away with utmost care.

I selected a box in which some mounted moths had been sent me by a friend in Louisiana, and when I went to examine my cocoons toward spring, to my horror I found the contents of the box chopped to pieces and totally destroyed.  Pestiferous little ‘clothes’ moths must have infested the box, for there were none elsewhere in the Cabin.  For a while this appeared to be too bad luck; but when luck turns squarely against you, that is the time to test the essence and quality of the word `friend.’  So I sat me down and wrote to my friend, Professor Rowley, of Missouri, and told him I wanted Promethea for the completion of this book; that I had an opportunity to make studies of them and my plate was light-struck, and house-moths had eaten my cocoons.  Could he do anything?  To be sure he could.  I am very certain he sent me two dozen `perfectly good’ cocoons.

From the abundance of males that have come to seek females of this species at the Cabin, ample proof seems furnished that they are a very common Limberlost product; but I never have found, even when searching for them, or had brought to me a cocoon of this variety, save the three on one little branch found by Raymond, when he did not know what they were.  Because of the length of spinning which these caterpillars use to attach their cocoons, they dangle freely in the wind, and this gives them especial freedom from attack.

CHAPTER XV The King of the Poets:  Citheronia Regalis

To the impetuosity of youth I owe my first acquaintance with the rarest moth of the Limberlost; “not common anywhere,” say scientific authorities.  Molly-Cotton and I were driving to Portland-town, ten miles south of our home.  As customary, I was watching fields, woods, fence corners and roadside in search of subjects; for many beautiful cocoons and caterpillars, much to be desired, have been located while driving over the country on business or pleasure.