Butterflies and Moths, Shown to the ChildrenWood, Theodore
General
Butterflies and Moths, Shown to the Children
Wood, Theodore
Butterflies -- Juvenile literature; Moths -- Juvenile literature
The caterpillar of the Humming-bird Hawk is greenish-brown, or
bluish-green, sprinkled with tiny white dots, and with a pinkish-white
stripe running along each side of its body. Below this is another
stripe of dull yellow, and at the end of the body is a blue horn with a
yellow tip. It feeds upon bedstraw, and when it has finished growing it
buries itself just below the surface of the ground, and then turns into
a reddish-brown chrysalis.
PLATE XXIV
THE BEE HAWK (2)
There are really two “bee hawks,” which you can recognise at once by
their transparent wings. And as one of them has a narrow black border
to its wings, while the other has a broad one, they are called the
Narrow-bordered Bee Hawk, and the Broad-bordered Bee Hawk. And really
they do look more like very big bumble-bees than moths. They fly by
day, like the “humming-bird hawk,” and you may sometimes see them
hovering in front of rhododendron blossoms on a bright sunny day in
May, and darting away at the slightest alarm with almost the speed of
light. But they are not very common, and in many parts of the country
they are never seen at all.
The caterpillar of the “broad-bordered bee hawk” feeds upon
honeysuckle, and that of the “narrow-bordered bee hawk” upon field
scabious--that common low plant which looks so much like a rather small
thistle. They are both green in colour, dotted with yellowish-white,
and with a brown horn at the end of the body. When they have finished
growing they spin little silken webs on the surface of the ground, and
turn to chrysalids inside them.
PLATE XXIV
THE CURRANT CLEARWING (3)
The “clearwings” are very odd little moths with transparent wings,
which have no scales upon them at all, except just on the narrow black
borders. The consequence is that they do not look in the least like
moths. They look much more like flies, or gnats, or wasps, or hornets.
They nearly all come out in June and July, and you may see them resting
on leaves in the hot sunshine.
Another curious thing about the “clearwings” is that their caterpillars
feed, not upon the leaves of plants and trees, like almost all other
caterpillars, but upon the pith of the stems or the twigs, or even upon
the solid wood of the trunk or the branches; so it is very difficult
indeed to find them. When they are fully fed they turn into chrysalids
with rows of tiny hooks along their bodies, by means of which they can
wriggle their way backwards and forwards along the burrows which they
made when they were caterpillars.
The Currant Clearwing is so called because its caterpillar feeds on the
pith in the young shoots of currant bushes. It is very common in almost
every kitchen-garden, and sometimes does a good deal of mischief to the
currants.
PLATE XXIV
THE HORNET CLEARWING (4)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account