THE MONSTERS OF OUR BACK YARDS 



609 



Of the butterflies, so called, which flit 

 across our lawns and flutter from the 

 grass as we brush through it, nine out 

 of ten are moths with feathery or pointed 

 antennae. 



It is said of certain species of yellow 

 butterflies that the males give off a pleas- 

 ing, aromatic odor which is exhaled from 

 the front wings through hundreds of 

 minute, slender scales — scales quite dif- 

 ferent from those with which the wings 

 and body are covered. This scent, which 

 is so strong that it can be detected by 

 even our blunted olfactory organs if we 

 rub the wings between thumb and fore- 

 finger, is supposed to attract the females 

 in some way that is little understood. As 

 among these particular butterflies the 

 male seeks out its mate, it is difficult to 

 understand why it should be the male 

 which has the perfume, since it does not 

 serve to tell the female where her mate 

 is to be found. The inference is that 

 in some way the perfume charms the 

 female. 



In some species it is the females which 

 give off an odor, and in either case the 

 distances over which these odors extend 

 and are detected by the males or females 

 respectively are analogous to the incon- 

 ceivable reach of wireless telegraphy. 

 And who knows but the mechanism of 

 these creatures is set to respond to the 

 swifty traveling ions which make wire- 

 less telegraphy possible. 



The Doctor Jaeckel and Mr. Hyde is 

 so complete between the butterfly which 

 flits over the cabbage patch and the vel- 

 vety green worm that eats holes in the 

 leaves of the cabbages that it is no won- 

 der that for centuries no connection be- 

 tween the two careers of these creatures, 

 seemingly so far apart, was suspected. 

 In general it is true that no moth or 

 butterfly is injurious to plants except in 

 its larval stage, and herein has laid the 

 clever deception which has doubtless pro- 

 tected these gay mating creatures of the 

 air from the systematic attacks of man 

 until quite recent times. 



L.\RV.\ OF THE SW.\LLOW-T.\TI. BUTTERFLY 



OF THE SPICE-BUSH (PapU'w troUiis) , 



PAGE 6ll 



Is this, I wonder, an insect make-be- 

 live, a caterpillar mask, as it were, to 



frighten away enemies? The black and 

 white eye spots are not real eyes, but to 

 a bird they doubtless seem so. Its real 

 eyes are inconspicuous jjoints at each side 

 of the head, too small to appear in the 

 photogra])h. 



Few of us stop to think as the beauti- 

 ful swallow-tailed butterfly, gorgeous in 

 its black and yellow painted wings, flits 

 by us that it is made of sassafras and 

 spice-bush leaves gathered together and 

 ground up. This monster is a leaf-eating 

 creature, its purpose being the accumula- 

 tion of food material out of which is 

 made inside of it the gorgeous swallow- 

 tail butterfly. It feeds on sassafras and 

 spice-bush leaves, and when the time ar- 

 rives makes a nest for itself by fastening 

 the edges of a leaf together. In this nest 

 it passes the winter. When spring comes 

 it breaks open the gray shell of the chrys- 

 alis, unfolds a pair of black and gold 

 wings with long tails to them, and flies 

 away in the sunshine in search of flowers 

 and a mate. It is then no more like this 

 monster than an eagle is like a hippo- 

 potamus, yet after it has flown about, 

 sucking nectar through its long beak, it 

 mates and lays a mass of eggs, out of 

 which hatch again these strange, weird 

 beings. 



A BUG THAT IS ALWAYS WALKING AROUND 



(Brochymena arhorea, Say), page 612 



This is, as my friend Dr. Schwartz 

 says, just one of those bugs that is al- 

 ways walking around on plants, and no- 

 body seems to know just what it is doing. 



A queer UNWORLDLY MONSTER (Cory- 



nocoris distinctiid) , page 613 



Could anything be more antediluvian 

 and unworldly than this old broken- 

 down creature, with six crooked legs, a 

 pair of i)opping-out eyes, two shining 

 ocelli which look straight up into the air. 

 and a long stout beak that is i)artly hid- 

 den behind one of the fore legs? 



A discussion of how such a fright of 

 a thing came into existence leads one 

 into the realms of evolutionary science, 

 and there we should perhaps find it sug- 

 gested that it is so ugly and looks so 

 much like the bark of the trees on which 

 it roosts that birds have passed its an- 

 cient forefather by, and through the 



