the paginate moth has two pages for wings. on each one, right-justified, sits a number — usually consecutive. the text on the wings is not its own. it absorbs the printing of whatever book it last roosted on, and carries the passage with it for several weeks before the ink fades.
encountered most often in libraries where the lights are kept low for the sake of bindings. a careful reader, finding a footnote on the wing of a moth, may sometimes use it to repair a missing line in the original volume. this is forbidden but not strictly prosecuted.
related to the page spider, with which it sometimes shares a shelf; and to the paper bear, which it tolerates. not to be confused with the margin bee, whose work appears narrower.
— a moth roosted on the half-title overnight and left a paragraph behind that the publisher denies. — k.l.