He describes two other species.  Citheronia Mexicana, a tropical moth that has drifted as far north as Mexico.  It is quite similar to Regalis, “having more orange and less red,” but it is not recorded as having been found within a thousand miles of my locality.  A third small species, Citheronia sepulcralis, expands only a little over three inches, is purple-brown with yellow spots; and is a rare Atlantic Coast species having been found once in Massachusetts, oftener in Georgia, never west of Pennsylvania.

This eliminates them as possible Limberlost species.  Professor Rowley raised this moth from the eggs I sent him.

The trouble is this:  Packard describes the fore-wings as `olive,’ the hind as `olive, and green.’  Holland makes no reference to colour, but on plate X, figure three, page eighty-seven, he reproduces Regalis with fore-wings of olive-green, the remainder of the colour as I describe and paint, only lighter.  In all the Regalis moths I have handled, raised, studied minutely, painted, and photographed, there never has been tinge or shade of green.  Not the slightest trace of it!  Each moth, male and female, has had a basic colour of pure lead or steel grey.  White tinged with the proper proportions of black and blue gives the only colour that will exactly match it.  I have visited my specimen case since writing the preceding.  I find there the bodies of four Regalis moths, saved after their decline.  One is four years old, one three, the others two, all have been exposed to daylight for that length of time.  The yellows are slightly faded, the reds very much degraded, the greys a half lighter than when fresh; but showing to-day a pure, clear grey.

What troubles me is whether Regalis of the Limberlost is grey, where others are green; or whether I am colour blind or these men.  Referring to other writers, I am growing `leery’ of the word `Authority’; half of what was written fifty years ago along almost any line you can mention, to-day stands disproved; all of us are merely seekers after the truth:  so referring to other writers, I find the women of Massachusetts; who wrote “Caterpillars and Their Moths”, and who in all probability have raised more different caterpillars for the, purpose of securing life history than any other workers of our country, possibly of any, state that the front wings of Regalis have “stripes of lead colour between the veins of the wings,” and “three or four lead-coloured stripes” on the back wings.  The remainder of my description and colouring also agrees with theirs.  If these men worked from museum or private collections, there is a possibility that chemicals used to kill, preserve, and protect the specimens from pests may have degraded the colours, and changed the grey to green.  But to accept this as the explanation of the variance upsets all their colour values, so it must not be considered.  This proves that there must be a Regalis that at times has olive-green stripes where mine are grey; but I never have seen one.