The Lamar register., 1898-09-07
INSECTS LOVE DRINK.
BLUE BUTTERFLIES NOTORIOUS.
FOR THEIR CAPACITY
Males Particularly Guilty While Water
Is the Usual Liquid Induiged in the
Topers Are Not Particular About Its
Quality.

Butterflies have never had char
acter for wisdom or foresight. Indeed,
they have been made a type of friyolity
and now something worse is laid to
their charge. In paper published by
the South London chronological So
ciety Mr. ]. w. Tut declares that some
species are painfully addicted to drink
ing, declares the London Standard.
This beverage it may be pleaded. is
only water. but it is possible to be
overabsorptive of nonalcoholics. Ex-,
cess in tea is not unknown-perhaps
the great DR.. johnson occasionally
offended in that respect--and even the
pump may be too often visited But
the accuser states that some butter
flies drink more than can be required
by their tissues under any possipie
conditions. 1t would not have been
surprising If, like some other insects,
butterflies had been almost total ab-
stainers, at any rate, from water, ana
had contented themselves with an oc-
casional sip of nectar from hover
But the charge now brought forward
is too precise to be shirked Mr.. Tutt
has been watching a certain butterfly
the name polyommatus. member
of this genus has been seen to sit Tor
more than an hour motionless. except
for the slight movement caused by the
almost continuous sucking up of the
fluid What can be the purpose of this
hydropathic treatment? We are not
aware that butterflies suffer from gout
or rheumatism or diseases of the d.
gestive organs; indeed, 1t can hardly
be a sanitary process. for Mr.. Tut re-
cords another curious observation.
The excess in drinking seems to be
almost a masculine characteristic. for
the topers. he states. are the males.
I They imbibe while the females are
| busy laying eggs. This unequal divis-
( ion OF pleasure and labor is not wholly
| unknown even among the highest of
the vetebrates: we have heard of cases
where the male was topping at the
public" while the female was nursing
| the children and doing the drudgery
/ of the household. Mr.. Tut has called
' attention to painful exhibition of de-
/ pravity which can often be observed
in an English country lane. where
shallow puddles are common, but
/ never so well as on one of the rough
paths that wind over the upper pas
lures in the Alps. Butterflies are more
abundant there than in England, and
\ they may be seen in dozens absorbing
{ the moisture from damp patches. Most
/ species are not above taking a sip now
and again, but the majority may be
\ elassed as moderate drinkers" The
greater sinners are the smaller ones,
{ especially the blues and the little but
terfly which, from its appearance, is
called the small copper" There
they sit, glued as it were to the mud
so besotted. such victims to intemper-
anee, that they will not rise till the
last moment to get out of the way of
horse or man. Some thirty years ago
Prof Bonney, in his alpine Regions"
described this popularity, saying that
( they were apparently SO stupefed
that they could scarcely be induced
to take wing-in fact. they were
drunk"
If We remember rightly, the female
occasionally is overcome by. the temp
tation to which her mate SO readily
falls a victim But we are by no
means sure that butterflies are drink
ers of water only. Certainly they are
not particular about its purity; they
will swallow it in condition which
would make a sanitarian shudder; nay
we fear that a not inconsiderable ad-
mixture of ammoniacal salts increases
the attraction of the beverage. 1t is
admitted that both moths and butter-
flies visit sugar. oyerripe fruit and the
like, but it is pleaded that they do this
for food Perhaps; but we fear this
is not the whole truth. The apologist
has forgotten that practice of ento-
mologists called "sugaring," which is
daubing trunks of trees and other
suitable places with a mixture of
which, no doubt, sugar is the main in
gredient, but of which the attraction
is enhanced by a little rum. Every
collector knows what a deadly lure
this is and what treasures the dark
lantern reveals as he goes his rounds
True, this snare is fatal only to the,
moth because at night the butterfly
is asleep If he once adopted noe
turnal habits we know where he would
be found, for he is not insensible by
! day to the charms of this mixture