Boy Scouts Handbook / The First Edition, 1911

by Boy Scouts of America

Chrysalis

INSECTS AND BUTTERFLIES
United States Bureau of Entomology
(Illustrations are copies from Comstock's "How to Know the
Butterflies," through courtesy of D. Appleton & Company.)

There is an advantage in the study of insects over most other branches of nature, excepting perhaps plants, in that there is plenty of material. You may have to tramp miles to see a certain bird or wild animal, but if you will sit down on the first patch of grass you are sure to see something going on in the insect world.

Butterflies

Nearly all insects go through several different stages. The young bird is very much like its parent, so is the young squirrel or a young snake or a {102} young fish or a young snail; but with most of the insects the young is very different from its parents. All butterflies and moths lay eggs, and these hatch into caterpillars which when full grown transform to what are called pupae or chrysalids--nearly motionless objects with all of the parts soldered together under an enveloping sheath. With some of the moths, the pupae are surrounded by silk cocoons spun by the caterpillars just before finally transforming to pupae. With all butterflies the chrysalids are naked, except with one species which occurs in Central America in which there is a common silk cocoon. With the moths, the larger part spin cocoons, but some of them, like the owlet moths whose larvae are the cutworms, have naked pupre, usually under the surface of the ground. It is not difficult to study the transformations of the butterflies and moths, and it is always very interesting to feed a caterpillar until it transforms, in order to see what kind of a butterfly or moth comes out of the chrysalis.

Take the monarch butterfly, for example: This is a large, reddish-brown butterfly, a strong flier, which is seen often flying about in the spring and again in the late summer and autumn. This is one of the most remarkable butterflies in America. It is found all over the United States. It is one of the strongest fliers that we know. It passes the winter in the Southern states as an adult butterfly, probably hidden away in cracks under the bark of trees or elsewhere. When spring comes the butterflies come out and begin to fly toward the north. Wherever they find the milk-weed plant they stop and lay some eggs on the leaves. The caterpillars issue from the eggs, feed on the milkweed, transform to chrysalids; then the butterflies issue and continue the northward flight, stopping to lay eggs farther north on other milkweeds. By the end of June or July some of these Southern butterflies have found their way north into Canada and begin the return flight southward. Along in early August they will be seen at the summer resorts in the Catskill Mountains, and by the end of October they will have traveled far down into the Southern states where they pass the winter.

Empty chrysalis and butterfly

The caterpillar of the monarch or milkweed butterfly is a very striking creature. It is nearly two inches long when full grown. Its head is yellow striped with black; its body is white with narrow black and yellow cross-stripes on each {103} segment. On the back of the second segment of the thorax there is a pair of black, whiplash-like filaments, and on the eighth joint there is a similar shorter pair. When this caterpillar gets ready to transform to chrysalis, it hangs itself up by its tail end, the skin splits and gradually draws back, and the chrysalis itself is revealed--pale pea-green in color with golden spots. Anyone by hunting over a patch of milkweed anywhere in the United States during the summer is quite apt to find these caterpillars feeding. It will be easy to watch them and to see them transform, and eventually to get the butterfly.