TASTE IN INSECTS, 41 



edge, and would not retire, nor pay any attention to 

 tlie reiterated blows of its friendly monitor, who at 

 length seized it by one of its legs and dragged it 

 away rather roughly. The toper, however, returned, 

 keeping his large mandibles extended with all the ap- 

 pearance of rage, and again stationed himself to quaff 

 the delightful beverage ; but its companion would 

 give it no quarter, and, coming in front, it seized it 

 and dragged it by main force to the nest*." 



The deficiency of fluids in butterflies, so different 

 in this their mature or rather old agef, from their 

 youth in the caterpillar state, — a deficiency which is no 

 doubt rendered still greater by their sporting so ac- 

 tively in the sun, — renders them no less thirsty than 

 the ants. We have often remarked accordingly, and 

 more particularly in the autumnal months, that 

 crowds of the small garden white butterfly {Pontia 

 Rapcp^ Haworth), during sunny weather, congregate 

 around the margins of ponds and other moist places. 

 At Compton Basset, in Wiltshire, we once counted 

 above fifty of these butterflies all assembled within a 

 space of a few yards on the sludge which had just 

 been left by the water of a pond, partially dried up 

 by the sun. What was most remarkable, they seemed 

 to have quite lost the pugnacious disposition which 

 they are affirmed to display when they meet with 

 their congeners on the wing. At the pond, on the 

 contrary, all was harmony among these light-winged 

 belligerents, no one disturbing its neighbour, though 

 they stood side by side, and almost touching one an- 

 other. They were, indeed, too intent on quenching 

 their thirst to think of attack or defence. We re- 

 marked, in the autumn of 1829, a similar congre- 

 gating of the same species of butterflies on the watered 



* Huher on Ants, page 150. 

 •}• See Insect Transformations, page 49. 



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