The California Dog's-head is even more beautiful than the southern
species. It is remarkable for its pink and purple iridescence--a
characteristic which is not common in the butterflies of the Yellow
and the White Tribes. The silhouette of the Dog's-head is less perfect
than in the more eastern species, and the yellow color tones are more
tinged with orange. The female is strikingly different, the wings
being plain pale yellowish buff marked only with a round blackish
eye-spot near the middle of each front wing and the barest suggestion
of a dark line around the extreme margin.
=The Clouded Sulphur=
_Eurymus philodice_
It is an interesting fact that the butterfly which one is most likely
to find in fields and along roadsides during practically all the weeks
of summer has seldom if ever been noted as a destructive insect. The
Clouded Sulphur is probably the commonest species in its group. There
may be times when the White Cabbage butterfly or other forms are more
abundant, but the Clouded Sulphur retains its place season after
season, with comparatively little noticeable variation in its numbers.
This is doubtless an illustration of an insect which has established
such relations with its food plants and its various insect and other
enemies that it remains in a fairly stable equilibrium--an example of
what is often called the balance of nature.
The Clouded Sulphur is about the only medium-sized yellow butterfly
generally found in the Northeastern states. The adults may be seen
from spring until autumn. They lay eggs upon clover and other plants.
These eggs hatch into small green caterpillars that feed upon the
leaves and are protectively colored so they are comparatively seldom
seen. When the food plant is disturbed they drop to the ground,
crawling up again upon stems and leaves when the disturbance is over.
These caterpillars moult several times during their growth. When full
grown they find such shelter as they are able and each spins a silken
web over part of the surface. It then fastens its hind legs into this
web and later spins a loop near the front end of the body. It pushes
itself beneath this loop and waits for several hours before the skin
breaks open along the back and is gradually shuffled off revealing the
chrysalis in position. A week or two later the fully developed
butterfly emerges from the chrysalis.
These yellow butterflies lend a distinctive charm to our summer
landscapes. They are constantly to be seen fluttering from place to
place, lightly visiting flowers of many kinds from which they suck the
nectar, and gathering in great colonies by roadside pools where they
seem to sip the moisture. There are many references to this insect in
the writings of New England authors. It evidently was an especial
favorite of James Russell Lowell who has often referred to it in
passages like this:
"Those old days when the balancing of a yellow butterfly over a
thistle bloom was spiritual food and lodging for a whole forenoon."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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