The female clung to the board, in any position in which she was placed.  Her tongue readily uncoiled, showing its extreme length, and curled around a pin.  With a camel’shair brush I gently spread her wings to show how near they were the size of the male’s, and how much larger her body was.

Her fore-wings were a trifle lighter in colour than the male’s, and not so broken with small markings.  The back wings were very similar.  Her antennae stood straight out from the head on each side, of their own volition and differed from the male’s.  It has been my observation that in repose these moths fold the antennae as shown by the male.  The position of the female was unnatural.  In flight, or when feeding, the antennae are raised, and used as a guide in finding food flowers.  A moth with broken antennae seems dazed and helpless, and in great distress.

I have learned by experience in handling moths, that when I induce one to climb upon bark, branch, or flower for a study, they seldom place their wings as I want them.  Often it takes long and patient coaxing, and they are sensitive to touch.  If I try to force a fore-wing with my fingers to secure a wider sweep, so that the markings of the back wings show, the moths resent it by closing them closer than before, climbing to a different location or often taking flight.

But if I use a fine camel’s-hair brush, that lacks the pulsation of circulation, and gently stroke the wing, and sides of the abdomen, the moths seems to like the sensation and grow sleepy or hypnotized.  By using the brush I never fail to get wing extension that will show markings, and at the same time the feet and body are in a natural position.  After all is said there is to say, and done there is to do, the final summing up and judgment of any work on Natural History will depend upon whether it is true to nature.  It is for this reason I often have waited for days and searched over untold miles to find the right location, even the exact leaf, twig or branch on which a subject should be placed.

I plead guilty to the use of an anesthetic in this chapter only to show the tongue extension of Carolina, because it is the extremest with which I am acquainted; and to coaxing wide wing sweep with the camel’shair brush; otherwise either the fact that my subjects are too close emergence ever to have taken flight, or sex attraction alone holds them.

If you do not discover love running through every line of this text and see it shining from the face of each study and painting, you do not read aright and your eyes need attention.  Again and again to the protests of my family, I have made answer—­

“To work we love we rise betimes, and go to it with delight.”