196 NORTH AMERICAN INSECTS. 



tutional monarchy, like the bees ; nor in a socialistic mon- 

 ster phalanstery, like the paper-manufacturing wasps; but 

 they are real anarchists, the subject of no superior officer, 

 and of no kind of government. Every one takes care of 

 himself; and in this fact, perhaps, lies the great secret of 

 their happiness ; for, although they are deprived of all social 

 comforts, still no one can find fault with another where all 

 mind their own business, and are mutually independent. 

 This social condition would never answer for mankind, be- 

 cause from our nature we are mutually dependent upon one 

 another, and ever must be so ; but it does very well for the 

 short-lived butterflies, who require but little food and have 

 no trouble to procure it. Independently they ramble about 

 while the sun shines, and during the night they sleep upon 

 the trunk or branches of a tree, or on the under side of a 

 leaf, of which they take fast hold with their feet. 



Butterflies, like moths, are not directly injurious to vege- 

 tation, because they have no mouths with which to eat, but 

 only a proboscis through which they suck the sweet juices 

 of flowers. Their caterpillars, however, are equally rapa- 

 cious, and would destroy all our vegetables, as well as trees, 

 if their number was not constantly diminished by birds, 

 beetles, wasps, lizzards, frogs, toads, and other animals that 

 feed upon them. 



Neither butterflies nor their caterpillars have ever been 

 used as articles of food by man, although the ancient Roman 

 epicures consid^ered the flesh of some grubs — for instance, 

 those of the Stag-beetle — as a very fine relish, and among 

 the inhabitants of the tropics in America the palm-worm 

 is very commonly eaten. Drury, an English entomolo- 

 gist, recommends all persons who are cast by shipwreck on 

 desolate islands, and can not find any thing else to eat, to 

 seek for those grubs which feed on wood and are found in 

 the trunks of trees, and says they can comfortably subsist 

 on them, at least for a short time. 



