The Butterfly Book Part 6

The b.u.t.terflies of this family may be distinguished as a great cla.s.s from all other b.u.t.terflies by the fact that in _both s.e.xes the first, or prothoracic, pair of legs is greatly dwarfed, useless for walking, and therefore carried folded up against the breast_. From this peculiarity they have also been called the "Four-footed b.u.t.terflies." This is the largest of all the families of the b.u.t.terflies, and has been subdivided into many subfamilies. Some of the genera are composed of small species, but most of the genera are made up of medium-sized or large species. The family is geologically very ancient, and most of the fossil b.u.t.terflies which have been discovered belong to it. The caterpillars are in most of the subfamilies provided with h.o.r.n.y or fleshy projections. The chrysalids always hang suspended by the tail.

The LEMONIIDae, the "Metal-marks."

This family is distinguished from others by the fact that _the males have four ambulatory or walking feet, while the females have six such feet. The antennae are relatively longer than in the Lycaenidae._ The b.u.t.terflies belonging to this great group are mostly confined to the tropics of the New World, and only a few genera and species are included in the region covered by this volume. They are usually quite small, but are colored in a bright and odd manner, spots and checkered markings being very common. Many are extremely brilliant in their colors. _The caterpillars are small and contracted. Some are said to have chrysalids which are suspended; others have chrysalids girdled and attached at the a.n.a.l extremity, like the Lycaenidae. The b.u.t.terflies in many genera have the habit of alighting on the under side of leaves, with their wings expanded._

The LYCaeNIDae, the "Gossamer-winged b.u.t.terflies."

This great family comprises the b.u.t.terflies which are familiarly known as the "hair-streaks," the "blues," and the "coppers." _The males have four and the females six walking feet. The caterpillars are small, short, and slug-shaped. The chrysalids are provided with a girdle, are attached at the end of the abdomen, and lie closely appressed to the surface upon which they have undergone transformation._ Blue is a very common color in this family, which includes some of the gayest of the small forms which are found in the b.u.t.terfly world. _In alighting they always carry their wings folded together and upright._

The PAPILIONIDae, the "Swallowtails" and their allies.

These b.u.t.terflies _have six walking feet in both s.e.xes. The caterpillars are elongate, and in some genera provided with osmateria, or protrusive organs secreting a powerful and disagreeable odor. The chrysalids are elongate, attached at the a.n.a.l extremity, and held in place by a girdle of silk, but not closely appressed to the surface upon which they have undergone transformation._

The HESPERIIDae, or the "Skippers."

They are generally _small in size, with stout bodies, very quick and powerful in fight. They have six walking feet in both s.e.xes. The tibiae of the hind feet, with few exceptions, have spurs. The caterpillars are cylindrical, smooth, tapering forward and backward from the middle, and generally having large globular heads. For the most part they undergo transformation into chrysalids which have a girdle and an a.n.a.l hook, or cremaster, in a loose coc.o.o.n, composed of a few threads of silk_, and thus approximate the moths in their habits. The genus _Megathymus_ has the curious habit of burrowing in its larval stage in the underground stems of the yucca.

To one or the other of these five families all the b.u.t.terflies, numbering about six hundred and fifty species, which are found from the Rio Grande of Texas to the arctic circle, can be referred.

_Scientific Names._--From what has been said it is plain to the reader that the student of this delightful branch of science is certain to be called upon to use some rather long and, at first sight, uncouth words in the pursuit of the subject. But experience, that best of teachers, will soon enable him to master any little difficulties which may arise from this source, and he will come finally to recognize how useful these terms are in designating distinctions which exist, but which are often wholly overlooked by the uneducated and un.o.bservant. It is not, however, necessary that the student should at the outset attempt to tax his memory with all of the long scientific names which he encounters in this and similar books. The late Dr. Horn of Philadelphia, who was justly regarded, during the latter years of his life, as the most eminent student of the _Coleoptera_, or beetles, of North America, once said to the writer that he made it a religious duty not to try to remember all the long scientific names belonging to the thousands of species in his collection, but was content to have them attached to the pins holding the specimens in his cabinets, where he could easily refer to them. The student who is engaged in collecting and studying b.u.t.terflies will very soon come, almost without effort, to know their names, but it is not a sin to forget them.

In writing about b.u.t.terflies it is quite customary to abbreviate the generic name by giving merely its initial. Thus in writing about the milkweed b.u.t.terfly, _Anosia plexippus_, the naturalist will designate it as "_A. plexippus_." To the specific name he will also attach the name of the man who gave this specific name to the insect. As Linnaeus was the first to name this insect, it is proper to add his name, when writing of it, or to add an abbreviation of his name, as follows: "_A. plexippus_, Linnaeus," or "Linn." In speaking about b.u.t.terflies it is quite common to omit the generic name altogether and to use only the specific name. Thus after returning in the evening from a collecting-trip, I might say, "I was quite successful to-day. I took twenty _Aphrodites_, four _Myrinas_, and two specimens of _Atlantis_." In this case there could be no misunderstanding of my meaning. I took specimens of three species of the genus _Argynnis--A. aphrodite_, _A. myrina_, and _A. atlantis_; but it is quite enough to designate them by the specific names, without reference to their generic cla.s.sification.

_Synonyms._--It is a law among scientific men that the name first given to an animal or plant shall be its name and shall have priority over all other names. Now, it has happened not infrequently that an author, not knowing that a species has been described already, has redescribed it under another name. Such a name applied a second time to a species already described is called a _synonym_, and may be published after the true name. Sometimes species have had a dozen or more different names applied to them by different writers, but all such names rank as synonyms according to the law of priority.

_Popular Names._--Common English names for b.u.t.terflies are much in vogue in England and Scotland, and there is no reason why English names should not be given to b.u.t.terflies, as well as to birds and to plants. In the following pages this has been done to a great extent. I have used the names coined by Dr. S.H. Scudder and by others, so far as possible, and have in other cases been forced myself to coin names which seemed to be appropriate, in the hope that they may come ultimately to be widely used. The trouble is that ordinary people do not take pains to observe and note the distinctions which exist among the lower animals. The vocabulary of the common farmer, or even of the ordinary professional man, is bare of terms to point out correctly the different things which come under the eye. All insects are "bugs" to the vulgar, and even the airy b.u.t.terfly, creature of grace and light, is put into the same category with roaches and fleas. Apropos of the tendency to cla.s.sify as "bugs" all things which creep and are small, it may be worth while to recall the story, which Frank Buckland tells in his "Log-book of a Fisherman and Naturalist," of an adventure which he had, when a school-boy, at the booking-office of the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway Company in Dover. He had been for a short trip to Paris, and had bought a monkey and a tortoise. Upon his return from sunny France, as he was getting his ticket up to London, Jocko stuck his head out of the bag in which his owner was carrying him. The ticket-agent looked down and said, "You will pay half-fare for him." "How is that?" exclaimed young Buckland. "Well, we charge half-fare for dogs." "But this is not a dog,"

replied the indignant lad; "this is a monkey." "Makes no difference,"

was the answer; "you must pay half-fare for him." Reluctantly the silver was laid upon the counter. Then, thrusting his hands into the pocket of his greatcoat, Buckland drew forth the tortoise, and, laying it down, asked, "How much do you charge for this?" The ancient receiver of fares furbished his spectacles, adjusted them to his nose, took a long look, and replied, "We don't charge nothin' for them; them 's insects." It is to be hoped that the reader of this book will in the end have a clearer view of facts as to the cla.s.sification of animals than was possessed by the ticket-agent at Dover.

CHAPTER IV

BOOKS ABOUT NORTH AMERICAN b.u.t.tERFLIES

_Early Writers._--The earliest descriptions of North American b.u.t.terflies are found in writings which are now almost unknown, except to the close student of science. Linnaeus described and named a number of the commoner North American species, and some of them were figured by Charles Clerck, his pupil, whose work ent.i.tled "Icones" was published at Stockholm in the year 1759. Clerck's work is exceedingly rare, and the writer believes that he has in his possession the only copy in North America. Johann Christian Fabricius, a pupil of Linnaeus, who was for some time a professor in Kiel, and attached to the court of the King of Denmark, published between the year 1775 and the year 1798 a number of works upon the general subject of entomology, in which he gave descriptions, very brief and unsatisfactory, of a number of North American species. His descriptions were written, as were those of Linnaeus, in the Latin language. About the same time that Fabricius was publis.h.i.+ng his works, Peter Cramer, a Dutchman, was engaged in giving to the world the four large quartos in which he endeavored to figure and describe the b.u.t.terflies and moths of Asia, Africa, and America.

Cramer's work was ent.i.tled "Papillons Exotiques," and contained recognizable ill.u.s.trations of quite a number of the North American forms. The book, however, is rare and expensive to-day, but few copies of it being accessible to American students.

Jacob Hubner, who was born at Augsburg in the year 1761, undertook the publication, in the early part of the present century, of an elaborate work upon the European b.u.t.terflies and moths, parallel with which he undertook a publication upon the b.u.t.terflies and moths of foreign lands.

The t.i.tle of his work is "Sammlung Exotischer Schmetterlinge." To this work was added, as an appendix, partly by Hubner and partly by his successor and co-laborer, Karl Geyer, another, ent.i.tled "Zutrage zur Sammlung Exotischer Schmetterlinge." The two works together are ill.u.s.trated by six hundred and sixty-four colored plates. This great publication contains some scattered figures of North American species. A good copy sells for from three hundred and fifty to four hundred dollars, or even more.

The first work which was devoted exclusively to an account of the lepidoptera of North America was published in England by Sir James Edward Smith, who was a botanist, and who gave to the world in two volumes some of the plates which had been drawn by John Abbot, an Englishman who lived for a number of years in Georgia. The work appeared in two folio volumes, bearing the date 1797. It is ent.i.tled "The Natural History of the Rarer Lepidopterous Insects of Georgia." It contains one hundred and four plates, in which the insects are represented in their various stages upon their appropriate food-plants. Smith and Abbot's work contains original descriptions of only about half a dozen of the North American b.u.t.terflies, and figures a number of species which had been already described by earlier authors. It is mainly devoted to the moths. This work is now rare and commands a very high price.

The next important work upon the subject was published by Dr. J.A.

Boisduval of Paris, a celebrated entomologist, who was a.s.sisted by Major John E. Leconte. The work appeared in the year 1833, and is ent.i.tled "Histoire Generale et Monographie des Lepidopteres et des Chenilles de l'Amerique Septentrionale." It contains seventy-eight colored plates, each representing b.u.t.terflies of North America, in many cases giving figures of the larva and the chrysalis as well as of the perfect insect.

The plates were based very largely upon drawings made by John Abbot, and represent ninety-three species, while in the text there are only eighty-five species mentioned, some of which are not figured. What has been said of all the preceding works is also true of this: it is very rarely offered for sale, can only be found upon occasion, and commands a high price.

In the year 1841 Dr. Thaddeus William Harris published "A Report on the Insects of Ma.s.sachusetts which are Injurious to Vegetation." This work, which was originally brought out in pursuance of an order of the legislature of Ma.s.sachusetts, by the Commissioners of the Zoological and Botanical Survey of the State, was republished in 1842, and was followed by a third edition in 1852. The last edition, revised and improved by Charles L. Flint, Secretary of the Ma.s.sachusetts State Board of Agriculture, appeared in 1862. This work contains a number of figures and descriptions of the b.u.t.terflies of New England, and, while now somewhat obsolete, still contains a great deal of valuable information, and is well worth being rescued by the student from the shelves of the second-hand book-stalls in which it is now and then to be found. For the New England student of entomology it remains to a greater or less extent a cla.s.sic.

In 1860 the Smithsonian Inst.i.tution published a "Catalogue of the Described Lepidoptera of North America," a compilation prepared by the Rev. John G. Morris. This work, though very far from complete, contains in a compact form much valuable information, largely extracted from the writings of previous authors. It is not ill.u.s.trated.

With the book prepared by Dr. Morris the first period in the development of a literature relating to our subject may be said to close, and the reader will observe that until the end of the sixth decade of this century very little had been attempted in the way of systematically naming, describing, and ill.u.s.trating the riches of the insect fauna of this continent. Almost all the work, with the exception of that done by Harris, Leconte, and Morris, had been done by European authors.

_Later Writers._--At the close of the Civil War this country witnessed a great intellectual awakening, and every department of science began to find its zealous students. In the annals of entomology the year 1868 is memorable because of the issue of the first part of the great work by William H. Edwards, ent.i.tled "The b.u.t.terflies of North America." This work has been within the last year (1897) brought to completion with the publication of the third volume, and stands as a superb monument to the scientific attainments and the inextinguishable industry of its learned author. The three volumes are most superbly ill.u.s.trated, and contain a wealth of original drawings, representing all the stages in the life-history of numerous species, which has never been surpa.s.sed.

Unfortunately, while including a large number of the species known to inhabit North America, the book is nevertheless not what its t.i.tle would seem to imply, and is far from complete, several hundreds of species not being represented in any way, either in the text or in the ill.u.s.trations. In spite of this fact it will remain to the American student a cla.s.sic, holding a place in the domain of entomology a.n.a.logous to that which is held in the science of ornithology by the "Birds of America," by Audubon.

A work even more elaborate in its design and execution, contained in three volumes, is "The b.u.t.terflies of New England," by Dr. Samuel Hubbard Scudder, published in the year 1886. No more superbly ill.u.s.trated and exhaustive monograph on any scientific subject has ever been published than this, and it must remain a lasting memorial of the colossal industry and vast learning of the author, one of the most eminent scientific men whom America has produced.

While the two great works which have been mentioned have ill.u.s.trated to the highest degree not only the learning of their authors, but the vast advances which have been made in the art of ill.u.s.tration within the last thirty years, they do not stand alone as representing the activity of students in this field. A number of smaller, but useful, works have appeared from time to time. Among these must be mentioned "The b.u.t.terflies of the Eastern United States," by Professor G.H. French.

This book, which contains four hundred and two pages and ninety-three figures in the text, was published in Philadelphia in 1886. It is an admirable little work, with the help of which the student may learn much in relation to the subject; but it greatly lacks in ill.u.s.tration, without which all such publications are not attractive or thoroughly useful to the student. In the same year appeared "The b.u.t.terflies of New England," by C.J. Maynard, a quarto containing seventy-two pages of text and eight colored plates, the latter very poor. In 1878 Herman Strecker of Reading, Pennsylvania, published a book ent.i.tled "b.u.t.terflies and Moths of North America," which is further ent.i.tled "A Complete Synonymical Catalogue." It gives only the synonymy of some four hundred and seventy species of b.u.t.terflies, and has never been continued by the author, as was apparently his intention. It makes no mention of the moths, except upon the t.i.tle-page. For the scientific student it has much value, but is of no value to a beginner. The same author published in parts a work ill.u.s.trated by fifteen colored plates, ent.i.tled "Lepidoptera-Rhopaloceres and Heteroceres--Indigenous and Exotic," which came out from 1872 to 1879, and contains recognizable figures of many North American species.

In 1891 there appeared in Boston, from the pen of C.J. Maynard, a work ent.i.tled "A Manual of North American b.u.t.terflies." This is ill.u.s.trated by ten very poorly executed plates and a number of equally poorly executed cuts in the text. The work is unfortunately characterized by a number of serious defects which make its use difficult and unsatisfactory for the correct determination of species and their cla.s.sification.

In 1893 Dr. Scudder published two books, both of them useful, though brief, one of them ent.i.tled "The Life of a b.u.t.terfly," the other, "A Brief Guide to the Commoner b.u.t.terflies of the Northern United States and Canada." Both of these books were published in New York by Messrs.

Henry Holt & Co., and contain valuable information in relation to the subject, being to a certain extent an advance upon another work published in 1881 by the same author and firm, ent.i.tled "b.u.t.terflies."

_Periodical Literature._--The reader must not suppose that the only literature relating to the subject that we are considering is to be found in the volumes that have been mentioned. The original descriptions and the life-histories of a large number of the species of the b.u.t.terflies of North America have originally appeared in the pages of scientific periodicals and in the journals and proceedings of different learned societies. Among the more important publications which are rich in information in regard to our theme may be mentioned the publications relating to entomology issued by the United States National Museum, the United States Department of Agriculture, and by the various American commonwealths, chief among the latter being Riley's "Missouri Reports."

Exceedingly valuable are many of the papers contained in the "Transactions of the American Entomological Society," "Psyche," the "Bulletin of the Brooklyn Entomological Society" (1872-85), "Papilio"

(1881-84), "Entomologica Americana" (1885-90), the "Journal of the New York Entomological Society," the "Canadian Entomologist," and "Entomological News." All of these journals are mines of original information, and the student who proposes to master the subject thoroughly will do well to obtain, if possible, complete sets of these periodicals, as well as of a number of others which might be mentioned, and to subscribe for such of them as are still being published.

There are a number of works upon general entomology, containing chapters upon the diurnal lepidoptera, which may be consulted with profit. Among the best of these are the following: "A Guide to the Study of Insects,"

by A.S. Packard, Jr., M.D. (Henry Holt & Co., New York, 1883, pp. 715, 8vo); "A Textbook of Entomology," by Alpheus S. Packard, M.D., etc. (The Macmillan Company, New York, 1898, pp. 729, 8vo); "A Manual for the Study of Insects," by John Henry Comstock (Comstock Publis.h.i.+ng Company, Ithaca, New York, 1895, pp. 701, 8vo).

HUGO'S "FLOWER TO b.u.t.tERFLY"

"Sweet, live with me, and let my love Be an enduring tether; Oh, wanton not from spot to spot, But let us dwell together.

"You've come each morn to sip the sweets With which you found me dripping, Yet never knew it was not dew, But tears, that you were sipping.

"You gambol over honey meads Where siren bees are humming; But mine the fate to watch and wait For my beloved's coming.

"The suns.h.i.+ne that delights you now Shall fade to darkness gloomy; You should not fear if, biding here, You nestled closer to me.

"So rest you, love, and be my love, That my enraptured blooming May fill your sight with tender light, Your wings with sweet perfuming.

"Or, if you will not bide with me Upon this quiet heather, Oh, give me wing, thou beauteous thing, That we may soar together."

EUGENE FIELD.

THE b.u.t.tERFLIES

OF