Elementary Zoology, Second EditionKellogg, Vernon L. (Vernon Lyman)
Science
Elementary Zoology, Second Edition
Kellogg, Vernon L. (Vernon Lyman)
Animals; Zoology
The butterfly feeds (as is indicated by the structure of its
mouth-parts) very differently from the larva; it sucks up by means of
its long tubular proboscis the nectar of flowers, nor does it confine
itself at all to the flowers of milkweeds. It is a fine flyer and a
great traveller. Many thousands of these butterflies often make long
flights or migrations together. At other times tens of thousands of
these butterflies congregate in a certain limited area, clinging
sometimes to the branches of a few trees in such numbers and so
closely together as to give the tree a brown color. Such a "sembling"
of monarch butterflies occurs every year near the Point Pinos
lighthouse on the Bay of Monterey, California. The object of this
assembling together is not understood. Both the larvæ and adults of
the monarch butterfly are distasteful to birds, by their possession
of an acrid body-fluid. The species is thus protected against the most
dangerous enemies of butterflies, a fact which chiefly accounts for
the great abundance and wide distribution of the monarch (see p. 137).
For a full account of the life-history of the monarch butterfly, see
"Scudder's Life of a Butterfly."
LARVA OF MONARCH BUTTERFLY (_Anosia plexippus_)
TECHNICAL NOTE.--For directions for finding and identifying the
larvæ of the monarch butterfly see p. 171. If larvæ (caterpillars)
of _Anosia_ cannot be found, those of any other butterfly or moth
will do. Use naked, smooth kinds like cutworms, cabbage worms and
the like, rather than hairy or spiny ones. Use large specimens.
Kill the caterpillar with ether or in a cyanide bottle.
=Structure= (fig. 44).--As we have learned from the study of the
life-history of the locust, water-beetle and butterfly, some insects
are hatched from the egg in a condition resembling that of the parents
in most structural characters. This is true of the locust. Other
insects, as the beetle and butterfly, are hatched in a form and
condition apparently very different from that of the parents. The
external appearance of a beetle or butterfly larva differs much from
that of the adult or imago of the same individual. It will be of
interest to examine more particularly the structural condition of one
of these larvæ and to compare it with the structure of the adult.
[Illustration: FIG. 44.--Dissection of the silkworm, larva of the moth
_Bombyx mori_.]
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