The Emperor moth came out on the 2nd of April, and suddenly filled the
cardboard box like the noonday phantom in the sunshine, so unexpected and
wonderful.
His wings, which as he rests are spread open, stretched from
one side of the box to the other, hovering over his old home, a beautiful
grey tipped with pink, and peacock-eyed, ring within ring. He clung to
the piece of heather upon which the caterpillar was found seven months
before, and which he had fixed in the threads of his cocoon. The immense
dark green caterpillar banded with black and spotted with gold was found
on the 29th of August among the heather on the hill-side; the sun
burning, the air all alight with the fire of the beams, a day of
flame - as if the keen tips of the pine needles would take fire in the
glow. The caterpillar in its colour and size seemed almost tropical;
those who have not seen it would scarcely believe that a caterpillar
could be so magnificent; but indoors in the cardboard box he lost his
sun-burnished colour and half his glory. Immediately afterwards he spun
his cocoon, and there he stayed for seven long months, so that the moth
thus suddenly appearing, without any cracking or opening of the cocoon,
appeared to be created on the spot. At first, indeed, some thought it was
a moth that had entered by the window, there being no rent or place of
exit from the perfect case.
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