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Birds and All Nature, Vol. IV, No 5, November 1898

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<h2><SPAN name="BUTTERFLIES_LOVE_TO_DRINK" id="BUTTERFLIES_LOVE_TO_DRINK"></SPAN> BUTTERFLIES LOVE TO DRINK.</h2> <div> <ANTIMG class="drop-cap" src="images/initial_b.jpg" width-obs="56" height-obs="70" alt="" /></div> <p class="drop-cap">BUTTERFLIES have never had a character for wisdom or foresight. Indeed, they have been made a type of frivolity and now something worse is laid to their charge. In a paper published by the South London Entomological Society Mr. J. W. Tutt declares that some species are painfully addicted to drinking. This beverage, it may be pleaded, is only water, but it is possible to be over-absorptive of non-alcoholics. Excess in tea is not unknown—perhaps the great Dr. Johnson occasionally offended in that respect—and even the pump may be too often visited. But the accuser states that some Butterflies drink more than can be required by their tissues under any possible conditions. It would not have been surprising if, like some other insects, Butterflies had been almost total abstainers, at any rate, from water, and had contented themselves with an occasional sip of nectar from a flower.</p> <p class="ac">MALES ARE THE SINNERS.</p> <p>The excess in drinking seems to be almost a masculine characteristic, for the topers, he states, are the males. They imbibe while the females are busy laying eggs. This unequal division of pleasure and labor is not wholly unknown even among the highest of the vertebrates; we have heard of cases where the male was toping at the "public" while the female was nursing the children and doing the drudgery of the household. Mr. Tutt has called attention to a painful exhibition of depravity which can often be observed in an English country lane, where shallow puddles are common, but never so well as on one of the rough paths that wind over the upper pastures in the Alps. Butterflies are more abundant there than in England, and they may be seen in dozens absorbing the moisture from damp patches. Most species are not above taking a sip now and again, but the majority may be classed as "moderate drinkers." The greater sinners are the smaller ones, especially the blues, and the little Butterfly which, from its appearance, is called the "small copper." There they sit, glued as it were to the mud—so besotted, such victims to intemperance, that they will not rise till the last moment to get out of the way of horse or man. Some thirty years ago Prof. Bonney in his "Alpine Regions," described this peculiarity, saying that "they were apparently so stupefied that they could scarcely be induced to take wing—in fact, they were drunk."</p> <p class="ac">OTHER LIQUIDS ARE LIKED.</p> <p>If we remember rightly, the female occasionally is overcome by the temptation to which her mate so readily falls a victim. But we are by no means sure that Butterflies are drinkers of water only. Certainly they are not particular about its purity; they will swallow it in a condition which would make a sanitarian shudder; nay, we fear that a not inconsiderable admixture of ammoniacal salts increases the attraction of the beverage. It is admitted that both Moths and Butterflies visit sugar, overripe fruit, and the like, but it is pleaded that they do this for food. Perhaps; but we fear this is not the whole truth. The apologist has forgotten that practice of entomologists called "sugaring," which is daubing trunks of trees and other suitable places with a mixture of which, no doubt, sugar is the main ingredient, but of which the attraction is enhanced by a little rum. Every collector knows what a deadly lure this is, and what treasures the dark-lantern reveals as he goes his rounds. True, this snare is fatal only to the Moth, because at night the Butterfly is asleep. If he once adopted nocturnal habits we know where he would be found, for he is not insensible by day to the charms of this mixture.</p> <p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</SPAN></span></p> <table class="sp2 mc w50 p2" title="MOTHS." summary="MOTHS."> <tbody> <tr> <td colspan="3"><span class="ac w100 figcenter"> <SPAN name="i_048.jpg" id="i_048.jpg"> <ANTIMG style="width:100%" src="images/i_048.jpg" width="446" height="600" alt="" /></SPAN></span> </td> </tr> <tr> <td class="xx-smaller ac w30">From col. Chi. Acad. Sciences.</td> <td class="x-smaller ac w40">MOTHS.—15/16 Life-size.</td> <td class="xx-smaller ac w30"> </td> </tr> <tr> <td class="xx-smaller ac w30">Phylampelus Achemon.</td> <td class="x-smaller ac w40"> </td> <td class="xx-smaller ac w30">Phylampelus pandorus.</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="xx-smaller ac w30"> </td> <td class="x-smaller ac w40">Smerinthus exaecatus.</td> <td class="xx-smaller ac w30"> </td> </tr> <tr> <td class="xx-smaller ac w30"> </td> <td class="x-smaller ac w40">Triptagon Modesta.</td> <td class="xx-smaller ac w30"> </td> </tr> <tr> <td class="xx-smaller ac w30">Sphinx chersis.</td> <td class="x-smaller ac w40">Choerocampa tersa.</td> <td class="xx-smaller ac w30">Coratomia amynton.</td> </tr> </tbody> </table> <hr class="chap" /> <p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</SPAN></span></p> </div> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />

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