s 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. Mr. Doubleday had assured me
personally that I might count on exact reproduction, and such details
of type and paper as I chose to select. I used the easel made for me
when a girl, under the supervision of my father, and I threw my whole
heart into the work of copying each line and delicate shading on those
wonderful wings, 'all diamonded with panes of quaint device,
innumerable stains and splendid dyes,' as one poet describes them.
There were times, when in working a mist of colour over another
background, I cut a brush down to three hairs. Some of these
illustrations I sent back six and seven times, to be worked over before
the illustration plates were exact duplicates of the originals, and my
heart ached for the engravers, who must have had Job-like patience; but
it did not ache enough to stop me until I felt the reproduction exact.
This book tells its own story of long and patient waiting for a
specimen, of watching, of disappointments, and triumphs. I love it
especially among my book children because it represents my highest
ideals in the making of a nature book, and I can take any skeptic
afield and prove the truth of the natural history it contains."

In August of 1913 the author's novel "Laddie" was published in New
York, London, Sydney and Toronto simultaneously. This book c