NATURAL SCIENCE NEWS. 



108 



man whom we meet every day on 

 the streets wearing in her bonnet 

 the skin or feathers of a bird, does 

 not as a rule know of the cruelty 

 practiced in procuring these adorn- 

 ments. Many varieties of water 

 birds acquire their fine plumes 

 only during the nesting season. It 

 is at this period while the parents 

 are engaged in caring for their 

 young that their rookeries are 

 sought out and the birds heartless- 

 ly slaughtered. The Least Tern, 

 one of our most beautiful sea birds, 

 once nested on Cobb's Island, Va., 

 in countless thousands. Three 

 years ago I visited the island with 

 the hope of securing a specimen 

 for our Cabinet of Natural History. 

 Although I remained ten days on 

 the island, only one bird was seen 

 and it fled in terror when it discov- 

 ered that it was a man it saw on 

 the beach and not a piece of drift 

 wood. "Ten thousand of these 

 birds were killed and shipped to 

 New York in a single season and 

 their eggs and youug left to rot in 

 the sand," said the light-house 

 keeper. The delicate white plumes 

 which are so much seen on ladies' 

 bonnets grow on the back of the 

 large white Egret. These appear 

 only during the nesting period. One 

 day in Florida I came upon a large 

 rookery of these birds and shall 

 long remember the scene. The 

 air was filled with the screams of 

 young birds pleading for the food 

 which their dead mothers could 

 never bring. The buzz of green 

 flies here and there in the swamp 

 marked the spots where the plume 

 hunters had shot down their vic- 

 tims. The plumes were stripped 

 from their backs in sight of the 

 young which now must starve that 

 our women may adorne themselves. 

 This terrible slaughter can be 

 checked only by our true women 

 who as they become acquainted 

 with the horrible cruelties prac- 

 ticed in procuring birds, cease to 

 wear aloft the mangled remains of 

 the little innoceuts and use their 

 influence on behalf of those creat- 

 ures which can not speak for them- 

 selves. 



T. Gilbert Pearson, 

 Guilford College, N. C. 



The Coloring of Butterflies. 



The purpose of the coloring of 

 butterflies is entertainingly told by 

 Dr. C. F. Marshall. The color ot 

 animals and plants is no accidental 

 quality. It is intended in different 

 ways to benefit its possessor in the 

 struggle for existence. In the case 



of flowers it has been shown that 

 the colors and scent serve to at- 

 tract insects which fertilize them. 

 Therefore, if insects can appreciate 

 the colors of the various flowers, 

 they must be able to distinguish 

 colors in the members of their own 

 and other species. The colors of 

 butterflies may be divided into 

 four main groups — protective col- 

 ors, warning colors, sexual colors 

 and the colors of mimicry. The 

 protective colors enable the but- 

 terfly to escape from its enemies, 

 owing to the coloring bearing a 

 strong resemblance to some other 

 object and thus aiding concealment. 

 The resemblance may be to anoth- 

 er butterfly, or to a flower or a leaf. 

 Protective coloring is usually con- 

 fined to the under surface of the 

 wings, which is colored more or 

 less like the leaves of flowers on 

 which the butterfly preferably 

 alights or perches. When the 

 wings are folded up exposing the 

 under surface only, the protection 

 is often very striking. In different 

 specimens resemblances may be 

 found to dead leaves in almost 

 every stage of decay. The "leaf 

 insect" resembles a bunch of leaves, 

 and it is hard to tell the '"stick in- 

 sect" from a group of dried twigs. 

 The larvae or caterpillars of butter- 

 flies, being soft-bodied, defenseless 

 creatures, are also protectively 

 colored. The usual color of the 

 caterpillars is green, the color of 

 the leaves on which they feed. 

 Caterpillars which have the habit 

 of feeding on grass are protected 

 by longitudinal strips, which facil- 

 itate concealment. At the time 

 when the larvae are about to change 

 into the chrysalis stage they usual- 

 ly turn a brown color, resembling 

 the earth, to which they descend. 

 Warning colors form^a remarkable 

 group of instances in which the 

 colors are conspicuous for the pur- 

 pose of warning other insects to 

 keep away. Warning coloring 

 arises from the fact that if an ani- 

 mal, liable to be eaten by others, 

 has a nauseous taste it is advan- 

 tageous that it should be quickly 

 recognized, and hence avoided by 

 the animals which would otherwise 

 eat it as food. The butterflies 

 possessing warning color are gen- 

 erally brightly colored on both sur- 

 faces of the wings, and they ex- 

 crete juices of a powerful odor, 

 which are offensive to insect-eating 

 animals. In sexual coloring the 

 more brilliant colors of the male 

 are explained by Darwin as meet- 

 ing the preference of the female for 

 a more brightly colored mate, but 

 Wallace attributes the more sober 



hues of the female to the necessity 

 of escaping detection at the critical 

 egg-laying period. One of the 

 most curios points in the coloring 

 of insects is that many butterflies 

 escape destruction by mimicking 

 the colors and markings of the un- 

 eatable forms. A large number of 

 cases are known in which an edible 

 butterfly mimics an inedible and 

 nauseous one, protected by its 

 warning colors so closely that in 

 many cases it would be considered 

 a member of the same species. 

 This resemblance is sometimes so 

 close as to deceive the butterflies 

 themselves, and the male of the 

 mimicking butterfly has been seen 

 pursuing the female of the mimick- 

 ing species unaware of his mistake 

 until he was very close to her. — 

 Chicago Record. 



The Nest of the Trap-door 

 Spider. 



The Trap-door Spider (Mygale 

 henzii, Girard) is widely diffused in 

 California. While wandering over 

 the Mesa (table lands), just back 

 of this city a few months ago I 

 was struck by the great number of 

 their nests in favorable localities. 

 In the adobe land hillocks are 

 numerous; in fact, in many places, 

 they are as thick as the ground 

 will permit. They are about a 

 foof in height, and some three or 

 four feet in diameter. These hill- 

 ocks, which are an interesting 

 formation in themselves, are se- 

 lected by the spiders, apparently, 

 because they afford excellent drain- 

 age, and cannot be washed away 

 by the winter rains. Their stony 

 summits are often as full of spi- 

 der's nests as they well can hold. 

 These subterranean dwellings are 

 shafts sunk vertically in the earth, 

 except where some stony obstruc- 

 tion compels the miner to deflect 

 from a downward course. These 

 shafts are from five to twelve in- 

 ches in depth and from one-half to 

 one and a half inches in diameter, 

 depending largely upon the age 

 and size of the spider. 



When the spider has decided 

 upon a location, which is always 

 in clay, adobe or stiff soil, he ex- 

 cavates the shaft by means of the 

 sharp horns at the end of his man- 

 dibles, which are his pick and 

 shovel and mining tools. The 

 earth is held between the mandi- 

 bles and carried to the surface. 

 When the shaft is of the required 

 size, the spider smooths and glazes 

 the wall with a fluid which is se- 

 creted by herself. Then the whole 



