Cool and unhealthful as the mornings are at first, it is not till the sun is nearly overhead that she leaves her retreat, for what of plant-life exists is then, under the full force of his beams, at its very best. Three or four hours a day, with few intervals of rest, she is actively on wing, regaling herself with exercise and food, thus storing little by little her body with some of the strength and vivacity which were hers when the famine of winter overtook her and forced her to retirement, so as the better to prepare for that work, the propagation of her kind, which is the principal, but not the only, aim of her existence. After four in the afternoon her presence is scarce, as she has sought her old, or some other, place of shelter and security.
But when the days have grown longer and warmer, and the trees are arrayed in their livery of green, she is in the fields bright and early, and often ere the dew has disappeared from the grass and the flowers. The most restless of beings she now is. Anon alighting upon a bush for a momentary rest, then off for a dozen or more rods, when the presence of some favorite blossom meets her quick sight and invites her to pause, which she does, but only for a second to quench her thirst. Where willows, or elms, or poplars abound, she is more frequently seen later on in May, but flying more slowly and sedately than ever before. The flowers pass unheeded. She seems in a dream, in a reverie. But all of a sudden she quickens her speed. You look for the cause. There, in the distance, another is seen, just like her in mien, some would-be suitor for her hand and affections. He enters his suit, he pleads his great love, and awaits her sweet pleasure. The answer is brief, and soon by their actions, as high up in the air they circle and circle, caressing each other with strokes of the antennæ, the story is told that his love has been requited. A brief honey-moon of two or three days and the love-scene is over, and the two settle down to the prosy realities of everyday life. The male goes back to his old-time pursuit of rifling the flowers of their honeyed treasures, whilst the female, upon whom devolves the duty of providing for the offspring whom she is never likely to see, looks scrutinizingly about for her favorite trees, the poplar, the elm, or the willow. In her selection of a tree a wonderfully keen discernment is shown, for she seldom, if ever, mistakes her plant-species.
MOURNING-CLOAK BUTTERFLY.
Larva Feeding on Willow Leaf, and Chrysalis Suspended from Twig.
When a choice has been made, no time is expended in fruitless endeavor. She proceeds at once to deposit her eggs. They are laid in a cluster round the twig, and near the petiole of a young leaf, upon which the newly-hatched larvæ are to feed. The eggs hatch inside of a week into small black spiny caterpillars which, in their early stages, are very social in their habits. Just before the final skin-moulting they separate, each caterpillar living alone, the necessity for food, which their very vigorous appetites now demand, being the impelling motive. In a state of maturity the larvæ are two inches in length. They are black, and minutely dotted with white, which gives them a greyish look. A row of brick-red spots are found down the back, and their body is armed with many black, rather long and slightly branching spines. The head is black, and roughened with small black tubercles.
Having completed their period of feeding, which they do in about four weeks, the caterpillars attach themselves by means of their tails to a fence-rail, a window-ledge, or some such place, and pass into the chrysalis state, which is accomplished in about four days. In this condition they present an odd-looking appearance. The head will be found to be deeply notched, or furnished with two ear-like prominences. The sides are very angular. In the middle of the thorax there is a thin projection, somewhat like a Roman nose in profile, while on the back are two rows of very sharp tubercles of a tawny color, which contrast very markedly in coloration with the dark-brown of the rest of the chrysalis. Fifteen days, when the weather is favorable, are sufficient for the development of the imago, or butterfly. As maturity approaches, the chrysalis-shell becomes quite soft, and the efforts of the imago to free itself from this covering are facilitated by the ejection of a blood-red fluid, which rots the case, while it acts, at the same time, as a lubricant to the emerging butterfly.
When these caterpillars are very abundant, as was the case in the vicinity of Germantown some twenty-five years ago, every fence-rail was hung with chrysalids, as many as a dozen being found upon a single rail. The caterpillars even climbed up the sides of the houses and suspended themselves from the window-ledges and the edges of the overhanging shingles. When the butterflies emerged, great blotches of the fluid bespattered the fences and houses as though the clouds had rained great drops of blood. The willows and poplars were alive with the caterpillars, and even the maples were overrun when there came a scarcity of the leaves of the natural food-plants. Green caterpillar-hunters were everywhere plentiful, and the writer could have taken hundreds of specimens, but these highly-useful beetles made a very sorry attempt in holding the enemy in check.
Two broods of the caterpillars are raised, one in June and the other in August, but the agencies by nature employed for their destruction so effectually accomplish their mission that hardly a season brings to my notice a dozen full-grown larvæ. Vanessa antiopa, as this species is called by the scientific student, or Mourning-Cloak by people and amateurs, is generally found through the whole of North America. In England, where it is popularly called the Camberwell Beauty, because specimens were first taken near Camberwell, it is the rarest of butterflies; while on the Continent, as in this country, it is a very plentiful insect.
LEAF-CUTTER BEE.
Few hymenoptera of the family of bees are so little known as the Megachilidæ, or Leaf-cutters. They are stout, thick-bodied insects, with large, square heads, and armed with sharp, scissors-like jaws, which admirably fit them for the work they have to do in preparing materials for the building of their homes.