of three inches, and hollowed an oval space the size of a medium hen egg, in which the pupa lay, but there was no trace of its cast skin.  Those that pupated on the ground had left their skins at the thorax, and lay two inches from them.  The horns came off with the skin, and the lining of the segments and the covering of the feet showed.  At first the cast skins were green, but they soon turned a dirty grey, and the horns blackened.

So from having no personal experience at all with our rarest moth, inside a few days of latter August and early September, weeks after hope had been abandoned for the season, I found myself with several as fine studies of the male as I could make, one of an immense caterpillar at maturity, one half-transformed to the moth, and three fine pupa cases.  Besides, I had every reason to hope that in the spring I could secure eggs and a likeness of a female to complete my illustration.  Call this luck, fairy magic, what you will, I admit it sounds too good to be true; but it is.

All winter these three fine Regalis pupa cases were watched solicitously, as well as my twin Cecropias, some Polyphemus, and several ground cocoons so spun on limbs and among debris that it was not easy to decide whether they were Polyphemus or Luna.  When spring came, and the Cecropias emerged at the same time, I took heart, for I admit I was praying for a pair of Regalis moths from those pupa cases in order that a female, a history of their emergence, and their eggs, might be added to the completion of this chapter.  In the beginning it was my plan to use the caterpillars, and give the entire history of one spinning, and one burrowing moth.  My Cecropia records were complete; I could add the twin series for good measure for the cocoon moth; now if only a pair would come from these pupa cases, I would have what I wanted to compile the history of a ground moth.

Until the emergence of the Cecropias, my cocoons and pupa cases were kept on my dresser.  Now I moved the box to a chair beside my bed.  That was a lucky thought, for the first moth appeared at midnight, from Mr. Idlewine’s case.  She pushed the wing shields away with her feet, and passed through the opening.  She was three and one-half inches long, with a big pursy abdomen, and wings the size of my thumbnail.  I was anxious for a picture of her all damp and undeveloped, beside the broken pupa case; but I was so fearful of spoiling my series I dared not touch, or try to reproduce her.  The head and wings only seemed damp, but the abdomen was quite wet, and the case contained a quantity of liquid, undoubtedly ejected for the purpose of facilitating exit.  When you next examine a pupa, study the closeness with which the case fits antennae, eyes, feet, wings, head, thorax, and abdominal rings and you will see that it would be impossible for the moth to separate from the case and leave it with down intact, if it were dry.