British Butterflies: Figures and Descriptions of Every Native Species. W. S. Coleman

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       W. S. Coleman

      British Butterflies: Figures and Descriptions of Every Native Species

      Published by Good Press, 2021

       [email protected]

      EAN 4057664580221

Table of Contents

       BRITISH BUTTERFLIES.

       CHAPTER I.

       CHAPTER II.

       CHAPTER III.

       CHAPTER IV.

       CHAPTER V.

       CHAPTER VI.

       REPUTED BRITISH SPECIES.

       INDEX.

       NATURAL HISTORY—ZOOLOGY.

       FLOWERS AND PLANTS.

       George Routledge & Sons, London, Glasgow, and New York.

BRITISH BUTTERFLIES.

       Table of Contents

CHAPTER I.

       Table of Contents

      INTRODUCTION.

      WHAT IS A BUTTERFLY—BUTTERFLIES AND MOTHS—BUTTERFLY LIFE—THE EGG STAGE—SCULPTURED CRADLES—BUTTERFLY BOTANY—THE CATERPILLAR STAGE—FEEDING UP—COAT CHANGING—FORMS OF CATERPILLARS—THE CHRYSALIS—MEANING OF PUPA, CHRYSALIS, AND AURELIA—FORMS OF CHRYSALIDES—DIFFICULTIES OF TRANSFORMATION—INFLUENCE OF TEMPERATURE.

      Occasionally a missive arrives from some benevolent friend, announcing the capture of a "splendid butterfly," which, imprisoned under a tumbler, awaits one's acceptance as an addition to the cabinet. However, on going to claim the proffered prize, the expected "butterfly" turns out to be some bright-coloured moth (a Tiger moth being the favourite victim of the misnomer), and one's entomological propriety suffers a shock; not so much feeling the loss of the specimen, as concern for the benighted state of an otherwise intelligent friend's mind with regard to insect nomenclature.

      It is clearly therefore not so superfluous as it might at first otherwise seem, to commence the subject by defining even such a familiar object as a butterfly, and more especially distinguishing it with certainty from a moth, the only other creature with which it can well be confounded.

      The usual notion of a butterfly is of a gay fluttering thing, whose broad painted wings are covered with a mealy stuff that comes off with handling. This is all very well for a general idea, but the characters that form it are common to some other insects besides butterflies. Moths and hawk-moths have mealy wings, and are often gaily coloured too; whilst, on the other hand, some butterflies are as dusky and plain as possible. Thus the crimson-winged Tiger, and Cinnabar moths get the name of butterflies, and the Meadow brown butterfly is as sure to be called a moth. So, as neither colouring nor mealy wings furnish us with the required definition, we must find some concise combination of characters that will answer the purpose. Butterflies, then, are insects with mealy wings, and whose horns (called "antennæ") have a clubbed or thickened tip, giving them more or less resemblance to a drum-stick. So the difference in the shape of the antennæ is the chief outward mark of distinction between butterflies and moths, the latter having antennæ of various shapes, threadlike or featherlike, but never clubbed at the tip.

      Having thus settled how a butterfly is to be recognized at sight, let us see what butterfly life is: how the creature lives, and has lived, in the stages preceding its present airy form.

      

      In like manner with other insects, all butterflies commence their existence enclosed in minute eggs; and these eggs, as if shadowing forth the beauty yet undeveloped whose germ they contain, are themselves such curiously beautiful objects, that they must not be passed over without admiring notice. It seems, indeed, as if nature determined that the ornamental character of the butterfly should commence with its earliest stage; form, and not colour, being employed in its decoration, sculpture being here made the forerunner of painting.

      Some of these forms are roughly shown on Plate II. (figs. 1-7), but highly magnified; for as these eggs are really very tiny structures, such as would fall easily through a pin-hole, the aid of a microscope is of course necessary to render visible the delicate sculpture that adorns their surface. The egg (fig. 1, Plate II.) of the common Garden white butterfly (Pieris Brassicæ) is among the most graceful and interesting of these forms, and also the most easily obtained. It reminds us of some antique vessel, ribbed and fluted with consummate elegance and regularity.

      Others—such as those of the Large Heath butterfly (fig. 3), and the Queen of Spain Fritillary (fig. 2), simulate curious wicker-work baskets. The Peacock butterfly has an egg like a polygonal jar (fig. 4), while that of its near ally, the large Tortoise-shell (fig. 5), is simply pear-shaped, with the surface unsculptured and smooth (fig. 5). The eggs of the Meadow Brown (fig. 6), and the Wood Argus (fig. 7), are globular—the former with lines on its surface like the meridian lines on a geographical globe, and a pretty scalloping at the top that gives a flower-like appearance to that portion; the latter has the whole surface honey-combed with a network of hexagonal cells. Such are a few of the devices that ornament the earliest cradle of the butterfly; but probably those of every species would well repay their examination to any one who possesses a microscope.

      Prompted by a most remarkable instinct, and one that could not have originated in any experience of personal advantage, the female butterfly, when seeking a depository for her eggs, selects with unerring certainty the very plant which, of all others, is best fitted for the support of her offspring, who, when hatched, find themselves surrounded with an abundant store of their proper food.

      Many a young botanist would be puzzled at first sight to tell a sloe-bush from a buckthorn-bush. Not so, however, with our Brimstone butterfly: passing by all the juicy hedge-plants, which look quite as suitable, one would think, she, with botanical acumen, fixes upon the buckthorn; either the common one, or, if that is not at hand, upon another species of rhamnus—the berry-bearing alder—which, though a very different looking plant, is of the same