THISTLE BUTTERFLIES, ANGLE WINGS, AND SULPHURS

Monograph Number Six in The Mentor Reading Course

Winged flowers, or flying gems.—Moore.

Painted Lady and Thistle Butterfly are prettier names than Pyrameis cardui for the familiar speckled, brown creature with a roseate tinge shown at the top of the plate. Found wherever the thistle grows, it is therefore one of the most widely distributed of all butterflies (as the thistle is one of the most widely distributed of all plants), fluttering over the purple blooms in the temperate regions of both hemispheres and in many tropical lands as well. It is hard to distinguish the Painted Lady from Hunter’s butterfly on the left. If, however, we should look on the under side of the hind wings, we should find that the Hunter’s butterfly has two large eyelike spots there, and the Painted Lady numerous and smaller eyelike spots. The two specimens are male.

Another common butterfly belongs to the Angle Wings, whose characteristics are deeply cut fore wings, the under side mimicking the bark of trees and dead leaves. The under side of the rover shown here visiting a dandelion is mottled brown with a pale purple hue. A silvery mark, like a semicolon or an interrogation, on the hind wings gives Grapta interrogationis its curious name. This is a common butterfly in the United States. Happy flocks are frequently found at the pans and buckets in a sugar camp, joyfully drinking the sap which drips from the wounded maples.

The splendid female spreading her lustrous velvet wings and rocking on a buttercup, on the lower right, is Vanessa antiopa, popularly known as the Mourning Cloak and the Camberwell Beauty. Though common in the north temperate zone, this splendid butterfly is none the less beautiful because it is a familiar object. The blue spots and the yellow border form a very decorative combination. The eggs of this butterfly are laid on twigs of willows and elms, upon which the caterpillars feed. The wings are noticeably graceful in line and proportion. The Painted Lady, the Hunter’s butterfly, the Interrogation butterfly, and the Mourning Cloak belong to the enormous family of the Nymphalidæ, or brush-footed butterflies.

In an entirely different family are classed the Sulphurs, belonging to the genus Colias. They are medium-seized butterflies, yellow or orange in hue, with black borders upon their wings. Though there are many varieties, ranging from the palest primrose to the deepest orange, and varying also in size as well as color, yet, in the main, the species is remarkably constant. The chief food of the Sulphurs is clover, and consequently the lovely pink and white clover fields are alive with these delicate little sprites. The Sulphurs also swarm in moist places by the wayside, and rise from pools and ruts in the roads at the approach of persons or vehicles. The butterflies in this family have six walking feet. The family, the Papilionidæ, which includes the Swallowtails and their allies, the Sulphurs and Whites, is very large.

PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION
ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR, VOL. 3, No. 12, SERIAL No. 88
COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION, INC.

The Butterfly Book

Courtesy Doubleday, Page & Co.

Copyrighted by W. J. Holland, 1898

AMERICAN FRITILLARIES

BUTTERFLIES