LITTLE BLUE BOOK NO. =796=
Edited by E. Haldeman-Julius
Life Among the
Butterflies
Vance Randolph, B. Sc., A.M.
Drawings by Peter Quinn
HALDEMAN-JULIUS COMPANY
GIRARD, KANSAS
Copyright, 1925,
Haldeman-Julius Company.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
LIFE AMONG THE BUTTERFLIES
CONTENTS
Chapter I. Books About Butterflies 7
Linnaeus--Clerck--Fabricius--Peter Cramer--Hübner--Smith
and Abbot--Boisduval and
LeConte--Harris--Morris--W. H. Edwards--S.
H. Scudder--G. H. French--C. J. Maynard--W.
J. Holland--William G. Wright--Longstaff--C.
M. Weed.
Chapter II. The Butterfly’s Body 12
The Head, Eyes, and Mouth Parts--The Thorax,
Wings, and Legs--The Abdomen--The Digestive
Apparatus--The Circulatory System--The
Respiratory Tract--The Excretory Organs--The
Nervous System--The Reproductive Organs.
Chapter III. Butterfly Metamorphosis 19
The First Stage or Egg--The Second or Larval
Stage--The Third or Pupal Stage--The
Fourth Stage or Imago.
Chapter IV. The Case of the Red Silverwing 23
Oviposition--The Egg--The Emergence of the
Caterpillar--The Caterpillar--Moulting--Pupation--The
Chrysalis--Pupal Movements--The
Appearance of the Butterfly.
Chapter V. The Classification of Butterflies 33
Subkingdoms, Classes, Orders and Suborders--The
Four Families--Subfamilies, Genera, and
Species--The Value of Scientific Nomenclature--Varieties.
Chapter VI. The Four Families 38
The Four-footed Butterflies--The Euploeinae--The
Heliconiinae--The Nymphalinae--The
Satyrinae--The Libytheinae--The Gossamer-winged
Butterflies--The Lycaeninae--The Swallowtails
and their Allies--The Pierinae--The
Papilioninae--The Skippers.
Chapter VII. Enemies and Protection 55
Protective Coloration--Offensive Odors and
Tastes--Warning Coloration--Protective Mimicry--Heliotropism
and List--Feigning Death.
LIFE AMONG THE BUTTERFLIES
CHAPTER I
BOOKS ABOUT BUTTERFLIES
Many ancient and mediaeval writers dealt with butterflies, but the
first descriptions of American species are found in the works of
Linnaeus, the great Swedish naturalist who wrote about 1750, and
invented the system upon which all modern classification is based.
Pictures of several American butterflies were published in 1759 by
Charles Clerck, who had studied with Linnaeus.
Johann Christian Fabricius, a professor at the University of Kiel,
published a few more descriptions in 1796, and Peter Cramer, at about
the same time, brought out four large volumes on the butterflies of
Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Most of these early books were written
in Latin, and are now so rare and expensive that few American students
have ever seen them.
Jacob Hübner published his great volumes on exotic butterflies in the
early part of the nineteenth century. This work was written in German,
and contained more than six hundred colored plates, but a good copy now
costs about eight hundred dollars, and is of very little use anyway.
In 1797 Sir James Edward Smith brought out his two-volume work on _The
Natural History of the Rarer Lepiodopterous Insects of Georgia_, the
first books ever devoted exclusively to North American species. This
work is valuable chiefly because it contains some drawings by John
Abbot, an Englishman who had actually lived in Georgia and studied
moths and butterflies at first hand. Some of Abbot’s pictures were
later used in another work on American lepidoptera by Dr. J. A.
Boisduval of Paris, and Major J. L. LeConte of New York, who wrote
in French about 1833. The books of both Smith and Boisduval are now
practically unobtainable.
In 1841 the Biological Survey Commission of Massachusetts published
a report on injurious insects by Dr. Thaddeus William Harris, which
described many New England butterflies. It is now out of print, the
last edition appearing in 1862.
The Rev. John G. Harris brought together a deal of information from the
works of other writers, and made a few minor observations of his own;
his compilation was published by the Smithsonian Institution about 1860.
In 1868 William H. Edwards, an engineer who lived in Coalburg, West
Virginia, brought out the first volume of his famous work, _The
Butterflies of North America_--probably the best book on the subject
ever written. Edwards laboriously worked out the life-histories of many
species, and illustrated the work by careful drawings and paintings
of his own. Two more volumes appeared later, the last one published
in 1897. _The Butterflies of North America_ is a magnificent piece of
work, produced under all sorts of handicaps, and will always be a
classic to American students of the subject.
In 1886 Dr. Samuel Hubbard Scudder published his _Butterflies of New
England_ in three volumes; this monograph is superbly illustrated, and
compares very favorably even with the epoch-making work of Edwards. The
works of Edwards and Scudder are probably the best books on butterflies
ever written in any language, and must always remain as monuments
of American industry and scholarship. Because of the excessive cost
of reproducing the colored plates, however, they are both rather
expensive; Scudder’s work retailed at ninety dollars, while Edward’s
three volumes never sold for less than a hundred and fifty, and even
this price, according to Dr. W. J. Holland, was below the cost of
manufacture.
_The Butterflies of the Eastern United States_, by G. H. French,
appeared about 1886. It is a good little book, and is still in common
use, but the illustrations are few and unsatisfactory.
In 1891 C. J. Maynard published a _Manual of North American
Butterflies_ with ten colored plates; the plates are very poor indeed,
and the text not much better.
In 1893 Dr. Samuel Hubbard Scudder, the author of the three great
volumes on the New England species, brought out a little book called
_The Life of a Butterfly_. It is a brief and popular account of the
life-history of _Anosia plexippus_, the Monarch or Milkweed butterfly,
which is common everywhere. Dr. Scudder’s _Brief Guide to the Commoner
Butterflies of the Northern United States and Canada_ also appeared in
1893--a very useful little book.
In 1898 Dr. W. J. Holland, Director of the Carnegie Museum at
Pittsburgh, published his famous _Butterfly Book_, in which he
described more than five hundred species, accompanying each description
with a sketch of the life-history and habits in all cases where these
details were known. The magnificent colored photograph plates are
quite equal for all practical purposes to the hand-colored drawings of
Edwards and Scudder, and enable the veriest tyro to classify any of
the commoner butterflies simply by comparing them with the pictures.
Besides the detailed description of each species there is a great
deal of miscellaneous information of interest to the general reader.
Because of the new process of reproducing photographs in colors the
book sold very cheaply--never more than four or five dollars--and has
done more to arouse a popular interest in butterflies than all other
works together. Many of the elementary books since 1898 are indebted to
Holland’s book, and the present booklet is no exception.
In 1905 William Greenwood Wright of San Francisco, published a book
called _West Coast Butterflies_. This work is illustrated with colored
plates nearly as good as Holland’s, and is indispensable to those
interested in California species.
George B. Longstaff’s _Butterfly-Hunting in Many Lands_ appeared in
1912. The book itself is of no great interest to North Americans,
as Longstaff spent only two weeks here, and came no farther south
than Montreal. Still, his chapter of _Bionomic Notes_ deals with
butterflies in general and is well worth reading. The best part of
the book, however, is the appendix, which contains E. A. Elliott’s
translations of Fritz Müller’s famous papers on scent-producing organs
in butterflies. The most important of these had never been published
except in some obscure Portuguese journals, practically inaccessible to
the American student.
In 1916, encouraged by the success of his _Butterfly Book_, Dr. Holland
prepared a pocket manual called the _Butterfly Guide_, with colored
figures representing some two hundred and fifty species.
In 1917 there appeared Clarence M. Weed’s _Butterflies Worth Knowing_,
with thirty-two plates in color. This is one of the best of the smaller
popular books, and contains a great deal of valuable modern material,
but is not to be compared with Holland’s work.
No important popular books on butterflies have appeared in recent
years. The best single work for the general reader is still Holland’s
_Butterfly Book_; those living west of the Rockies should have Wright’s
_West Coast Butterflies_ also.