"
When she failed to secure the moth she wanted in a living and
perfect specimen for her studies, the author set out to raise one,
making photographic studies from the eggs through the entire life
process. There was one June during which she scarcely slept for
more than a few hours of daytime the entire month. She turned her
bedroom into a hatchery, where were stored the most precious
cocoons; and if she lay down at night it was with those she thought
would produce moths before morning on her pillow, where she could
not fail to hear them emerging. At the first sound she would be up
with notebook in hand, and by dawn, busy with cameras. Then she
would be forced to hurry to the darkroom and develop her plates in
order to be sure that she had a perfect likeness, before releasing
the specimen, for she did release all she produced except one pair
of each kind, never having sold a moth, personally. Often where the
markings were wonderful and complicated, as soon as the wings were
fully developed Mrs. Porter copied the living specimen in water
colours for her illustrations, frequently making several copies in
order to be sure that she laid on the colour enough brighter than
her subject so that when it died it would be exactly the same shade.
"Never in all my life," writes the author, "have I had such
exquisite joy in work as I had in painting the illustrations for
this volume of `Moths of the Limberlost.' Colour work had advanced
to such a stage that I knew from the beautiful reproductions in
Arthur Rackham's `Rheingold and Valkyrie' and several other books
on the market, that time so spent would not be lost.
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