Moths Of The Limberlost Review

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(More customer reviews)Gene Stratton-Porter, 1863-1924, was a naturalist, photographer, and writer. This book is derived from her "Moths of the Limberlost, with water color and photographic illustrations from life" published in 1912 by Doubleday, Page, and company. This brings me to my one objection to the book. It has no pictures! The original book contains 106 of her photographs including 20 that were hand colored. The pictures include moths, their eggs, caterpillars, cocoons, and pupa cases, along with pictures of their food plants and the environment in which they are found. While photography of her day did not produce nature pictures of the quality we expect today, they are, never-the-less, an integral part of the work. I was very disappointed to find them missing. On a minor note, five verses quoted in the original book are not in this one. Otherwise, the text does appear to be intact except perhaps for a few references to illustrations.
Given that finding a copy of the original book for sale is difficult, this reprint is well worth obtaining even without the illustrations. Gene Stratton-Porter was a keen naturalist and an excellent writer. The first chapter is an introduction. The second is an overview of the natural history of moths. It is only slightly technical. She has studied the research issues and questions of the day and comments on them. While she guesses wrong on at least one point: whether male moths find their mates by smell, her opinions are always based on observations and her reasoning clearly stated. In some areas, her observations are at the boundaries of what is known about moths at the time. But even in this technical chapter, she presents material in terms of her experiences, both experiences with with moths and experiences studying the writings of lepidopterists.
Each of the remaining thirteen chapters deals with one (or in one case, two) moths. Rather than create a comprehensive book on moths, she has focused on those that have caught her interest. These are moths that she has photographed and, in most cases, raised from egg to caterpillar to pupa and back to adult. Each chapter is not only an essay on a particular moth, is it also a bit of her own autobiography. In them she describes her experiences with moths from her childhood through the years she spent developing the book. These include her great joys in discovering and learning about the moths and her disappointments at loosing moths or at failing to successfully raise them through a life cycle. The book describes her family's participation in her love of moths and describes the friendships she made in the pursuit of these beautiful insects. It is a window into her personality and her passion for nature.

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I held the hat while the Deacon brought the board. Then with trembling care we slipped it under, and carefully carried the moth into the conservatory. First we turned on the light, and made sure that every ventilator was closed; then we released the Io for the night. In the morning we found a female clinging to a shelf, dotting it with little top-shaped eggs. I was delighted, for I thought this meant the complete history of a beautiful moth. So exquisite was the living, breathing creature, she put to shame the form and colouring of the mounted specimens. No wonder I had not cared for them!

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