The Butterflies of the British IslesSouth, Richard
Science
The Butterflies of the British Isles
South, Richard
Butterflies -- Great Britain; Butterflies -- Great Britain -- Identification; Lepidoptera -- Great Britain
=Head of Butterfly.=
_a_, compound eye; _b_, palp; _c_, antenna; _d_, proboscis.]
The horns (_c_) (_antennæ_), or feelers, as they are sometimes called,
which adorn the head, are now considered to be organs of smell. These
are composed of a number of rings or segments, which vary in the
different kinds of butterfly, as also does the shape of the terminal
rings forming what is known as the club. In Fig. 7, _e_ (Purple Emperor)
and _f_ (Marbled White) represent the gradually thickened club; in _g_
(Brimstone) and _h_ (Dark-green Fritillary) the clubs are more or less
abruptly formed. Our Skippers have well-developed clubs; these may be
hooked at the tip as in _i_ (Large Skipper), or blunt at the tip as in
_j_ (Chequered Skipper); at the base of the Skipper's antenna, that is
at the point where it is inserted in the head, there is a tuft of rather
long hairs.
Of the various mouth parts it will only be necessary to refer to the
suction-tube, Fig. 6, _d_ (_proboscis_), often called the "tongue,"
which is perhaps the most important, at least to the butterfly itself,
as this organ is, in a way, as useful to it in the perfect state as were
the very differently constructed strong biting jaws (_mandibles_) of its
caterpillar existence. These latter in the butterfly are only
microscopically represented, and the suction-tube of the perfect insect
is an extension of the maxillæ, which in the caterpillar are not
conspicuous. When not engaged in probing the nectaries of flowers for
the sweets they contain, the suction-tube is neatly coiled up between
the palpi (Fig. 6, _b_). Its great flexibility is due to the many rings
of which it is composed. Although seemingly entire, it is really made up
of two tubes, each being grooved on its inner side, and forming, when
the edges are brought together, an additional central canal, through
which the sweets from the flowers and other liquids are drawn up into a
bulb-like receptacle in the head, whence it passes into the stomach.
When it is remembered that the passage of sweet, and no doubt sticky,
fluid through the central tube would most probably result in its walls
becoming clogged, there is reason to suppose that the method of
construction permits of the canal being cleansed from time to time.
[Illustration: FIG. 7.
=Antennæ of Butterflies.=]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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