28 SOUTH-AFRICAN BUTTERFLIES. 



The food of these insects in their perfect state consists mainly of the 

 honey of flowers, and this renders them of great importance to the 

 world of plants ; their downy heads and bodies, and in some cases their 

 long trunks, conveying the pollen to the stigma of the flowers which 

 they visit. Hermann Miiller has well indicated (Bcfruchtung cler Blu- 

 men, Engl, transl, 1883, p. 594, &c.) how exactly and reciprocally 

 many flowers and butterflies are thus adapted to serve each others' 

 purposes, especially in the Alps, whose exceptionally brilliant flora 

 appears to lay itself out, as it were, to attract the Ehopalocera, which 

 are more numerous at considerable altitudes than any other group 01 

 diurnal insects. Many other liquid substances, however, prove attrac- 

 tive to butterflies, — water, the juice of fruits, sap of trees and other 

 plants, and even animal excreta, blood, and decomposing matter attract- 

 ing various species.^ It is not uncommon to find small clusters or 

 groups of various species drinking at damp sand or mud on the edge 

 of water ; and observers on the great tropical rivers never fail to notice 

 the brilliant effect of the larger assemblies of this description there 

 prevalent. The butterflies that afiect the stronger drinks above men- 

 tioned are chiefly members of the Sub-Family Nymphalinm, some of 

 which (the genus Charaxes, for instance) appear never to visit flowers ; 

 but several LycmnidcB and some of other groups are found indulging in 

 the same liquids, especially at the sap exuding from the wounds in 

 trees. The compound of sugar and beer used by collectors to attract 

 nocturnal moths proves also very seductive to butterflies with the tastes 

 described, and may be used with considerable effect in bringing some 

 of the high and rapid flyers within reach. There are, again, a good 

 many species that appear to take little or no food in their imago state ; 

 such are various Satyrince and Lyccenidm, and apparently nearly all the 

 Erycinidce, of which latter Mr. Bates observes ^ that very few species 

 frequent flowers, though he mentions that some were noticed imbibing 

 the moisture from damp sand.^ 



The flight of butterflies varies very greatly in speed, height, and 

 duration. The Danaince, Acrccince, and Satyrince are nearly all slow 

 flyers, and the latter are erratic and wavering, and seldom rise far 

 above the herbage. The JErycinidcc, Zyccenidce, and Jlesjjeridce — espe- 

 cially the latter — are all characterised by the shortness of their flight, 

 though they show every degree of speed. Most of the Picrincc are very 

 active insects, and they exhibit the peculiarity of travelling onward in 

 one direction, instead of fluttering about particular spots. Nearly all 



^ Oberthiir has observed {Etudes d' Entomologie, i, p. 17, 1876) that the beautiful Teracolus 

 Charlonia (Donzel) of Northern Africa seemed to be attracted by the sweat of horses ; and 

 Mr. H. 0. Forbes records (Naturalist's Wanderings in Eastern ArcJiipelago, p. 138, 1885) 

 that in Sumatra Eux>lcea Ochsenheimeri settled numerously on the perspiring bodies of the 

 natives and on his own hands ; and that another large butterfly, Cynthia Juliana, was also 

 often caught at the bodies of the natives. 



2 Journ. Linn. Soc, ZooL, ix. p. 369 (1868). 



' Naturalist on the Amazons, 2d edit., p. 331. 



