AROMATIC BUTTERFLIES. 1047 



EXCURSUS XL.— AROMATIC BUTTERFLIES. 



With iiioiry heart, whose flnshes rise 

 Ijtke sploiKlour-winjifol l)iitlerflics 

 From hoiievM hoiirts cif tlowei-s in May. 



Gkrai.i) Massky.— ii«6e Christabel. 



Its raiment was the tliousanil dyes 

 Of (lowers in the heavenly paradise. 



UoGO.— Tlie poetic mirror. 



Fritz Muller, a naturalist who lias clone much by his researches in 

 various fields to bring new evidence in support of Darwin's theory, aston- 

 ishod the entomological world about ten years ago with a long list of 

 odors emitted by butterflies and moths. It had been known for a long 

 time that certain butterflies had peculiar odors, but no one imagined the 

 extent and variety of this peculiarity. And indeed this is not altogether 

 strange, since the cases known up to the present time are largely drawn 

 from tropical butterflies, and the odor is always lost after death, and in 

 many cases is exceedingly faint and fleeting. The study of the apparatus 

 through which the odors are emitted shows that three classes of organs 

 are involved in their production, and the variation in intensity of odor in 

 different creatures leads to the very reasonable belief that the identical 

 organs found in an immense number of butterflies where we can })erceive 

 no odor, are also scent producers, even though their odors may be too 

 ethereal for human senses. 



The odors produced by butterflies are very largely confined to the male 

 sex, evidently for the delectation of their mates, and the organs through 

 which they are produced may be divided into three classes : extensible 

 glands, situated upon the abdomen ; tufts or pencils of hairs, found 

 upon various parts of the body, even including the legs and wings ; and 

 scales or scale-clusters, confined entirely to the wings. In the first class, 

 that of extensible glands, we have the case of Anosia and its allies, the 

 males of which can protrude from the terminal segment of the body, as 

 has already been described in this work, a sac-like finger, bristling with 

 hairs, which upon withdrawal are closely compacted into a pencil. The 

 odor emitted by this organ is said by Fritz Muller to be rather disagreea- 

 ble when the processes are fully protruded, and as being rather faint in 

 our species. I have never myself experimented with it. Similar organs 

 are found in the allied Euploeinae, of some species of which de Niceville 

 says: "The males . . . may often be observed patrolling a small aerial 

 space, with the end of the abdomen curled under the body toward the 

 thorax, and with the two beautiful yellow anal tufts of long hair distended 

 to their fullest extent at right angles to the body." (Journ. Asiatic soc. 

 Beng., liv : 41). So, too, in the Heliconinae similar organs exist and that 

 in both sexes, and the odor is described as of a disgusting nature. The 



