28 
SOUTH-AFEICAN BUTTERFLIES. 
The food of these insects in their perfect state consists mainly of the 
honey of jflowers, 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 {Befruchtung der 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 Rhopalocera, which 
are more numerous at considerable altitudes than any other group or 
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 Wymphalince, some of 
which (the genus CJiaraxes, for instance) appear never to visit flowers ; 
but several Lycoe7iidcG 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 Satyrinm and Lycmnidce^ and apparently nearly all the 
Erycinidoe, 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 Danaincc, Acrceince, and Satyrinm are nearly all slow 
flyers, and the latter are erratic and wavering, and seldom rise far 
above the herbage. The Erycinidm, Lycmnidm^ and Hesperidm — espe- 
cially the latter — are all characterised by the shortness of their flight, 
though they show every degree of speed. Most of the Pierinm 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 dJ Entomologie, i. p. 17, 1876) that the beautiful Teracolus 
Charlonia (Donzel) of Northern Africa seemed to be attracted by the sweat of horses ; a,nd 
Mr, H. O. Forbes records {Naturalist's Wanderings in Eastern ArcJiipelago, p. 138, 1885) 
that in Sumatra Euploea Oclisenheimeri 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, 
