Botfly

“ But the butterfly, on the other hand, is well known to be a fickle, flitting, fantastic creature: he flies high from bunch to bunch of large and noticeable bright-hued flowers. Above all other members of the insect tribe, he is a lover of color: big patches of red or white or purple are the things to attract him from a distance with their massive glare, and to draw him down from his careless flight in the eye of heaven. ”

“ Well, just look at their feelers or “antennæ,” as they are often called. You will see that those of butterflies are thickened at the very tips, while those of moths are not. Besides this, the body of a butterfly is nipped in at the middle much more than that of a moth. And when a butterfly is at rest it always folds its wings together over its back, while moths nearly always spread them out, or allow them to hang down, or wrap them round their bodies. ”

“ Directly the larva of the Bot-fly is out of the egg and lodged between the skin and the flesh of its host, the bullock, it finds itself in a place perfectly suitable to its existence. In this happy condition the larva increases in growth, and eventually becomes a fly in its turn. Those parts of the animal's body in which the larvæ are lodged are easily to be recognised, as above each larva may be seen an elevation, a sort of tumour, termed a bot—a bump, as Réaumur calls it, comparing it more or less justly to the bump caused on a man's head by a severe blow. ”

“ Certain colors and forms are possessed by animals which adapt them to their surroundings in such wise that they are in a greater or less degree secured from observation and attack....
"A good illustration of this fact is found in the Disipsus Butterfly, which belongs to a group which is not especially protected, but is often the prey of insect-eating creatures. This butterfly has assumed almost the exact color and markings of the milkweed butterfly, which is distasteful to birds, and hence enjoys peculiar freedom from the attacks of enemies. ”

“ GUIDE TO BUTTERFLIES
By Samuel Hubbard Scudder.
22 uncolored plates, showing about 100 species.
THE BUTTERFLIES OF THE WEST COAST
By W. G. Wright.
32 colored plates, with figures of 487 species.
THE OPEN LETTER
There are no small things in Nature, whatever the text-books say. All things in life are large and important if we will but have them so. The terms “large” and “small” are simply relative. To the eye of the insect world the delicate butterfly is a monster with widespread wings that completely cover the sky. ”

“ Even the adult butterflies of this species have to be on the lookout for enemies. During the long months of their life many of them probably succumb to the attacks of birds or other creatures. I have seen but one such tragedy. While riding along a country highway with a bird-loving friend one spring day we saw a male Maryland yellow-throat flit by with a Mourning-cloak in his mouth. The bird lit on a fence, from which I startled him so that he dropped the butterfly, a worn and faded, half-dead specimen. The places where the bird held the insect were indicated by missing pieces of the wings. ”

“ Some of the small butterflies and moths take to flight long before an hour has passed, but in many cases several hours elapse before the creature starts from its first resting place. Butterflies that emerge in the morning spend their first day actively on the wing; but the nocturnal moths that emerge early in the day do not fly till evening twilight. When, however, the time arrives, the insect flutters its wings as if to test their power before committing itself to the air ”

“ This is the distention and drying of the wings, which at first are very weak and somewhat baggy affairs, although the colour and markings appear upon them in miniature. All other parts of the butterfly seem fully formed, but the helpless condition of the wings alone prevent it as yet from floating off into the air. In a remarkably short time, after the insect has settled to the business, the fluids from the body commence to flow and circulate through the wings, and these are seen gradually expanding and filling out until they attain their proper size. ”

“ Now, the moths fly about in the dusk or late at night; the flowers which attract them are pale, lacking in brilliancy, and, above all, destitute of honey-guides in the shape of lines or spots; and the insects themselves are generally dark and dingy in coloration. Whenever they possess any beauty of color, it takes the form of silvery scales which reflect what little light there may be in the gray gloaming. The butterflies, on the other hand, fly by day, and display, as we know, the most beautiful colors of all insects. ”

“ Now it lights on a great white head of wild carrot, or on a rose. Let us look at it. Its wings are black [Pg 143] and yellow. The black is in bands and streaks. It has six bluish spots on each lower wing, and one large red and blue spot. Its body is like black velvet. Each lower wing has a long, beautiful, curved tail.
The butterfly is an insect with far more beauty than sense. We may say it is an insect with very little brains. It has none of the wise ways of the ant, wasp, bee or spider; it only flies and eats, and lays eggs. It builds no house, stores no food, takes no care of its young. ”

“ And throughout the world of animated beings it may be safely said that the growth and changes of life can nowhere be so easily and pleasantly observed as in the rearing of butterflies and moths from the egg. As to butterflies, it may be asserted that they are less interesting than their cousins the moths, who constitute the elder branch of the great natural group of scaly-winged insects, or Lepidoptera, to which both belong. The butterflies are less numerous in species, or kinds, and more uniform in habit and appearance. ”

“ The butterfly has four wings, which are the largest and most conspicuous part of the insect. The wings consist of membranes stretched over horny tubes called veins; in the newly emerged insect the veins contain both blood and air, but the veins of the adult contain air only. The colors of the wing are due to minute scales which cover the membranes in an overlapping fashion like shingles on a roof. The scales vary considerably in size and form as well as in color, and the males of some species bear specialized scales known as androconia, which produce odors attractive to the females. ”

“ Hence these composite flowers are great favourites with all insects whose suckers are long enough to reach the bottom of their slender tubes.
The butterfly's view of life is doubtless on the whole a cheerful one. Yet his existence must be something so nearly mechanical that we probably overrate the amount of enjoyment which he derives from flitting about so airily among the flowers, and passing his days in the unbroken amusement of sucking liquid honey. Subjectively viewed, the butterfly is not a high order of insect ”

“ The lepidoptera are divided into two Suborders: the Rhopalocera, or Butterflies, and the Heterocera, or Moths. Both are characterized by having scaly wings, hence the name, which is derived from the Greek words λεπὶς (lepis) meaning scale, and πτερὸν (pteron) meaning wing. Lepidoptera are “scale-winged insects.” Any one who has ever handled a butterfly or moth, must have noticed upon his fingers a dust-like substance, rubbed off from the wings of the captured insect. ”

“ Butterflies are therefore often called diurnal lepidoptera, and moths are spoken of as nocturnal lepidoptera. There are, however, a few butterflies which fly at dusk, and there are many moths which are diurnal in their habits. Such moths are generally gay in color, and for the most part inhabit tropical countries, although we have a few such species in the United States. Ordinarily the best way to distinguish between butterflies and moths is by examining their antennæ, or “feelers,” as they are sometimes incorrectly called. ”

“ The butterfly itself is a very conspicuous insect, measuring about two inches across the expanded wings. The female is of a yellowish-white colour, with darker to blackish markings at the fore-angles of the front wings, while there are two similar spots on the surface of the same wings, and one on the hind pair. The male is whitish, with a dull greyish-green or bluish hue, marked much as the female, except that there is only a single spot on the surface of each wing. ”

“ You must often have noticed this very pretty insect flying about in the spring, for it is quite common in almost all parts of the country. And you cannot possibly mistake the male for any other butterfly, because of the large patch of orange-yellow at the tips of the front wings. But the female is without this orange patch, so that you might easily take her for one of the small white butterflies. ”

“ The butterfly has six legs that grow from the chest part of its body. But the butterfly is not a walking insect. Bees, wasps, ants, and beetles, you know, walk a great deal. Butterflies rarely use their legs for anything but standing when they eat or rest. They move only by flying.
The wings are made of two thin skin-pieces laid upon a framework of nerves or veins. They are covered with a double layer of scales. The edge scales are long and fringe-like. The upper and under sides of the wings differ in color. ”

“ M. F. Brauer, of Vienna, the author of the most thorough work we have on these flies, tells me that he knows of but one other Bot fly (a species of Cephanomyia) which produces living larvæ instead of eggs. The eggs of certain other species of Bot flies do not hatch until three or four days after they are laid. The larvæ of the sheep Bot fly live, during April, May and June, in the frontal sinus of the sheep, and also in the nasal cavity, whence they fall to the ground when fully grown. In twenty-four hours they change to pupæ, and the flies appear during the summer. ”

“ Now take one of your thin pins, and pass it through the thorax of the butterfly, while open or shut, and put it into the corked lining of your pocket-box. So secured, the butterfly will travel uninjured till you reach home; but a heap of dead butterflies in a box together will, in the course of a long walk, so jostle together, as to entirely destroy each other's beauty, rubbing off all their painted scales, when, of course, they are as butterflies no longer. ”

“ The family Lithosiidæ contains several small moths, distinguished from the other Bombyces by the narrowness of their fore wings. When the insects are at rest, all the wings are wrapped closely round the body. They fly at dusk on summer evenings, but may be obtained during the daytime by beating the boughs of trees. If an open net be held under the boughs during this operation, the moths will generally feign death and allow themselves to fall into it when they are disturbed. ”

“ Many collectors, although they may always use a killing bottle for moths, never employ one for butterflies, but kill them by pinching the thorax. It is well to know how to do this, for it sometimes turns out to be a really quicker process than that we have just been considering; and, more than this, you can resort to it should you break or lose your bottle while in the field. It is done in this manner: Bring the two opposite sides of the net together, closing them on the insect so that it cannot flutter. ”

“ In the grasshopper it is long and threadlike; in the butterflies always ending in a knob; in moths always tapering to a point, although sometimes threadlike and sometimes much branched, forming a beautiful plume; in the beetles, sometimes fan-like, sometimes like a comb; and in other insects assuming still other forms. Insects' eyes are often colored beautifully. A horse-fly's eyes are striped. Butterflies' eyes have usually a soft liquid coloring, and moths' eyes in the dark shine like little fiery beads. ”

“ The perfect insect is very common in dry, stony places, generally near river-beds, during January, February and March. It flies only a short distance when disturbed, but is very quick on the wing, and hence difficult to catch until one becomes accustomed to it. In some places these little butterflies are so abundant that they take wing like a swarm of blow-flies. They seldom open their wings whilst at rest, so that when perched on the ground they are very inconspicuous.
Genus 2.—LYCÆNA, F. ”

“ They fly mostly in the evening twilight, or even in the night. Compare the antennæ of the cabbage-butterfly with those of the silkworm-moth or the leopard-moth and you will see how easy it is to distinguish a butterfly from a moth, a cocoonless from a cocoon-spinning insect. ”

“ He was a butterfly of fifty-seven—a butterfly that found it necessary to touch up with artificial powders the ravages of years upon the delicate, downy bloom of youth—a butterfly whose wings had now and again been singed by contact with a harmful flame—whose still shapely body was now and again bent with rheumatism. Surely the rheumatic butterfly is the most wretched of insects! ”

“ In nearly every case where the food is thus restricted the insect feeds only upon species which are closely related to one another, generally falling within a single genus according to the classification of the botanists.
There has been much discussion in regard to the way in which the mother butterfly knows the particular species which she chooses for oviposition. Experiments apparently have shown that she is not dependent upon the sense of sight but rather upon the sense of smell, which as is well known is much more highly developed in insects than in the higher animals. ”