24 August 1996

Two Things About Moths

I only know two things abut moths, the first of which I learned as a boy. Once a train was speeding along during a storm when the engineer saw someone wildly waving their arms directly in front of the train. After the driver brought the train to a violent halt, though, he couldn't find anyone when he climbed down from the cab. He did soon discover that he would have died had he not stopped the train: the swollen river had washed away the railway bridge. The engineer also solved the mystery of the phantom flagman: a moth trapped in the train's headlight projected the image of an arm-waving person. (If I remember the story correctly, the moth is now in a museum somewhere.)

Also, moths eat holes in sweaters.