An Unhealthy Obsession.

Great excitement among my male silk moths this morning; each one was wildly flapping his wings. The reason was that another female moth had emerged. Already one male had mated with her, and another was trying to attach himself to her too. Now that I know about the pheromone, it all makes sense.

I removed the extra male as gently as possible, and then put the mating pair (stripy male and female) in another box to give them a little peace. At once the rest calmed down. That pheromone is a powerful molecule, but it seems that once the source is removed the effect soon fades away.

I then managed, at last, to separate yesterday's happily mating couple (stripy female-unstripy male), removed the male, and after waiting a few seconds replaced the paper under the female - which was now dirty. She then promptly started to lay her eggs. It were as if I had given her permission.

I am trying to leave the silk moths alone now, and divert my mind back to the Patagonia novel. I want to try and finish the Tehuelche edits this week because I have to give in the revised manuscript to my editor at Seren in March.