OBSERVATIONS ON THE BEHAVIOR OF BUTTERFLIES 



CHARLES W. HARGITT 



The following observations have been made at various times 

 during several years as opportunity has afforded, and with little 

 thought that they might ever be offered for publication. Look- 

 ing them over recently it has seemed that there might be a 

 few sidelights which would have some interest to students of 

 behavior, and with this in mind they have been written out 

 quite briefly as an incidental contribution to a subject of vast 

 interest and importance. 



The lepidoptera have been for many years a favorite group 

 among students of tropisms. The familiar phenomenon of the 

 moth fluttering in the candle flame at night has long ago passed 

 into a proverb. It is only within recent times that observations 

 upon butterflies, and also upon many larvae of these forms, have 

 come in for critical study and attempted explanation. It is no 

 part of the present purpose to attempt any review of the subject, 

 though a few references can not be avoided in discussing the 

 facts to be reported. While the earlier observations and deduc- 

 tions of Loeb, Davenport, Graber, Radl and others have been 

 of value, and have stimulated greatly the interest in the sub- 

 ject, it remained for later students to undertake to study with 

 accuracy and critical control the factors involved in the be- 

 havior. To the writer it has seemed that the work of Radl 

 and Parker have been noteworthy in this respect. It was the 

 graphic account by the latter on ' The Phototropism of the 

 Mourning-cloak Butterfly, Vanessa Antiopa Linn.," which 

 prompted the observations herein submitted. In most respects 

 they will be seen to confirm the facts cited by Parker, and but 

 for a few features which apparently differ in certain fundamen- 

 tals, there would have been small occasion for giving them 

 publicity. 



Let me say at the outset that my observations were made 

 wholly in the open, that is, in the natural habitats of the organ- 

 isms, no attempt being made to put specimens under artificial 



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