Stratton-Porter, Gene

 

Gene Stratton-Porter was a naturalist and author of the Limberlost Swamp, south of Wabash, Indiana. Some of her other books included A Girl of the Limberlost, The Song of the Cardinal, At the Foot of the Rainbow, The Harvester, Michael O'Halloran, and The Keeper of the Bees. She was born in 1863 and died in 1924. Her biography, The Lady of the Limberlost, was written by her daughter, Jeanette Porter Meehan.

The Cecropia moth resembles the robin among birds; not alone because he is gray with red markings, but also he haunts the same localities. The robin is the bird of the eaves, the back door, the yard and orchard, Cecropia is the moth. The moths of the Limberlost, 1912.

 

One perfect night during the middle of May, all the world white with tree bloom, touched to radiance with brilliant moonlight, intoxicating with countless blending perfumes, I placed a female Cecropia on the screen of my sleeping-room door and retired. Ibid.

 

Past midnight I was awakened . . . I went to the door and found the porch, orchard, and night-sky alive with Cecropias holding high carnival. I had not supposed there were so many in all this world. From every direction they came floating like birds down the moonbeams. Ibid.