Just on the outskirts of Portland, beside a grassy ditch and at the edge of a cornfield, grew a cluster of wild tiger lilies. The water in the ditch had kept them in flower long past their bloomtime. On one of the stems there seemed to be a movement.

"Wait a minute!" I cried, and Molly-Cotton checked the horse, but did not stop, while I leaned forward and scanned the lilies carefully. What I thought I saw move appeared to be a dry lily bloom of an orange-red colour, that had fallen and lodged on the grasses against a stalk.

"It's only a dead lily," I said; "drive on."

"Is there a moth that colour?" asked Molly-Cotton.

"Yes," I replied. "There is an orange-brown species, but it is rare. I never have seen a living one."

So we passed the lilies. A very peculiar thing is that when one grows intensely interested in a subject, and works over it, a sort of instinct, an extra sense as it were, is acquired. Three rods away, I became certain I had seen something move, so strongly the conviction swept over me that we had passed a moth. Still, it was raining, and the ditch was wet and deep.