THE BUTTERFLIES AND MOTHS 119 



OBSERVATIONS FOR PUPILS 



BUTTERFLIES 



A 



1. Make a list of butterflies that you know by sight. If you have 

 access to the Butterfly Book or Comstock 1 s How to know the Butterflies, 

 you can identify those you see. 



2. Keep the caterpillars of some butterflies in a vivarium to see their 

 changes. You can probably find some one of these : the Cabbage 

 Worm, Orange-dog, Monarch Butterfly caterpillar on milkweed, Black 

 Swallow-tail caterpillar on parsley, celery, or parsnip plants or the 

 Mourning Cloak Butterfly caterpillars on willow, poplars, and elm. 



3. Read some of the chapters on Butterflies in Dickerson's Moths 

 and B:dterflies ; also such of the following as you have access to : 



American Insects, pages 446-454. Nature Biographies, pages i-io, 11-21, 71-88. 

 Stories of Insect Life, First Series, pages 12-17, 22-27, 37-40. 



B 



i. Write or tell the story of The Life of a Butterfly. Follow some 

 such outline as this : 



The laying of the egg. 



The hatching of the larva. 



The growth of the larva. 



The change to the chrysalis. 



The change to the butterfly. 



The habits of the butterfly. 

 If the story is written, illustrate it by some sketches of the life stages. 



SPHINX MOTHS 



1. Late in summer or early in autumn one can generally find larvae 

 of Sphinx Moths by a little searching of these plants : Tomato, grape, 

 woodbine, or Virginia creeper, purslane, and various trees and shrubs. 



2. When a Sphinx larva is found, keep it in a vivarium with two 

 inches of earth in the bottom. Feed it regularly and keep the vivarium 

 clean. When it is full grown, it will probably enter the soil to pupate. 

 Then put the vivarium away in a cool cellar till spring. 



3. Read these accounts of Sphinx life histories : 



American Insects, pages 431-439. Moths and Butterflies, pages 224-242. 

 Stories of Insect Life, Second Series, pages 38-45, 56-62. 



