The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1907-10-20
The Insect Beautiful


though really quite harmless; cater
pillars transform into curious case-en-
closed creatures called chrysalids,
which hang for a week or two quite
still; and finally the chrysalids develop
into the glorious and bright-winSed
creatures that float over the flowers
and are the especial favorites among
all the children of the sum-" Easily
collected, they may so be used in school
work as to guide and crafty the 'col-
lecting mania" possessed by nearly
every normal child. With little skill
and with less learning in this branch
of nature every teacher can have a
collection of forms so striking and of
colors so marvellous in their brilliancy
or delicacy that the insect world will
lose most of its horror to the most tim
id and abnOrmally sensitive. If these
observations and collections are begun
in school days. the boy or girl will be
immune thereafter from the thrills of
instructive dread that torture many
people through life on account of the
ever-present insect visitor in some of
its forms How much better is the
poets feeling toward these marvellous
creatures:
stay near me-do not take thy flight!
A little longer stay In sight!
Much converse do L find in thee,
Historian OF my infancy!
Float near me; do not yet depart!
Dead times revive In thee:
Thou bring'st, gay creature as thou ART,
A solemn image to my heart"
Wordsworth: To a Butterfly.
The Tiger Swallow Tail.
A few weeks ago, the writer's atten-
ton was arrested by the flight of
pair of large, yellow and black, swal-
limo
size and beauty. which fluttered slowly
and gracefully as if without fear from
the flower garden to offal in the street,
rising and falling in graceful fiutter-
ings, and finally soaring high in the
air to be lost to sight. These were
Tiger Swallowtails, members of a large
family of splendid beauties confined 10
the temperate regions of America. At
times they become so numerous that
Scudder once captured siXty-nine of
them on a single cluster of lilacs. The
mature caterpillar is smooth, leaf
green in color, with a reddish head and
a double stripe of yellow and back
across its back. In its final stage it
weaves a hammock formed of threads
interlacing across a leaf, and reposes
on this elastic bed till 1t is ready to
pass into a straight, rough, rugged,
gray-bIown chrysalis, which after
ward turns into TINS gorgeous Dutler-
fly.
The White Butterfly.
For observation of this Well known
white species, go into a cabbage patch.
Among any of the plants whose leaves
are perforated or cut out along the
edges, you may find several smooth,
green caterpillars. about an inch long,
which is the cause of these perfOra
tions. The caterpillar is the larva of
a white butterfly into which it would
have changed had it been Matched from
the egg earlier in the season. On some
of the leaves is a tiny cone-shaped OBJ
ject-the egg of the butterfly. The egg
first matches into a very small, green,
worm-like creature that begins at once
to nibble the cabbage leaves. After
eating for few days, the cabbage
worm takes a rest and mouths or casts
it's skin. Then il eats again for about
a week and again its skin, which has
become too tight for It, splits OXEN
along the back, and the worm makes
its way out of its old skin, clothed
with one entirely new. The moulting
may occur twice more, before the cat
erpillar is full grown, and then comes
the great change of its life. This spe-
cies finds a sheltered place and spins
a silken loop with which TO hold up the
front end of its body, and entangles it's
hind legs in a similar tuft. Then the
body thickens, the skin cracks along
the back, and there energies a new sort
of creature, the pupa, from the cater
pillars skin, which hangs as a chrysalis
supported from the two ends by the
silken skeins. Two weeks later the
chrysalis splits open and a white but
terf1y comes out.
A good insect cage for watching the
transformations may be made from
chalk box by cutting a large square
out of the center OF the lid and lacking
over this opening a wire screen. We
thus have small box with sliding lid.
in which cabbage leaves with cater
pillars on them can be placed and all
the subsequent transformations from
worm to butterfly observed by the stu
dents.
The Monarch.
The largest of our brown butterflies
is the Monarch, which ranges the field
from midsummer till autumn. Its eggs
are laid on the milkweed, and the cat
erpillar appears to feed entirely upon
the soft leaves of this milky plant. The
larva, black and white, zebra-like
species with two long horns, often
spins on the under side of the leaf a
little mat of silk to which it clings head
downward for a day when about to be-
come Il CHTySdHS. AS II does SO, 1t
changes its skin and energies as a
queer-looking shell case broader be-
low than above. Presently reversing
gthese proportions, the case becomes a
beautiful green, bespangled with golden
spots For nearly two weeks the insect
remains hanging to the leaf, till the in
distinct form of a butterfly is Gimly
visible through the thin outer covering.
After awhile this envelope bursts. and
the forelegs of the butterfly grasp at
the leaf above. while another pair hold
to the empty chrysalis. The wet, crum-
pied wings, dry out and expand as the
body Juices run into their veins. Then
the butterfly gets upon the leaf and
after an hour or two takes flignJ.
The Viceroy.
Another common butterfly with us is
the Viceroy. Next to the Monarch in
size among the brown butterflies, it is
also very like the latter in color, which
IL is believed to mimic for protection
against its bird enemies. For the Mon
arch has a bitter taste, while the
Viceroy has not; therefore, say the ad-
vOcates of the theory OF the survival
of the fittest, those Viceroy butterflies