The Butterfly Book: A Popular Guide to a Knowledge of the Butterflies of North AmericaHolland, W. J. (William Jacob)
Science
The Butterfly Book: A Popular Guide to a Knowledge of the Butterflies of North America
Holland, W. J. (William Jacob)
Butterflies -- North America
_Polymorphism and Dimorphism._--Species of butterflies often show great
differences in the different broods which appear. The brood which
emerges in the springtime from the chrysalis, which has passed the
winter under the snows, may differ very strikingly from the insect which
appears in the second or summer brood; and the insects of the third or
fall brood may differ again from either the spring or the summer brood.
The careful student notes these differences. Such species are called
polymorphic, that is, appearing under different forms. Some species
reveal a singular difference between the sexes, and there may be two
forms of the same sex in the same species. This is most common in the
case of the female butterfly, and where there are two forms of the
female or the male such a species is said to have dimorphic females or
males. This phenomenon is revealed in the case of the well-known Turnus
Butterfly; in the colder regions of the continent the females are yellow
banded with black, like the males, but in more southern portions of the
continent black females are quite common, and these dark females were
once thought, before the truth was known, to constitute a separate
species.
_Albinism and Melanism._--Albinos, white or light-colored forms, are
quite common among butterflies, principally among the females. On the
other hand, melanism, or a tendency to the production of dark or even
black forms, reveals itself. Melanism is rather more common in the case
of the male sex than in the female sex. The collector and student will
always endeavor, if possible, to preserve these curious _aberrations_,
as they are called. We do not yet entirely understand what are the
causes which are at work to produce these changes in the color, and all
such aberrant specimens have interest for the scientific man.
_Monstrosities._--Curious malformations, producing monstrosities,
sometimes occur among insects, as in other animals, and such malformed
specimens should likewise be preserved when found. One form of
malformation which is not altogether uncommon consists in an apparent
confusion of sexes in specimens, the wings of a male insect being
attached to the body of a female, or half of an insect being male and
half female.
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