Birds and All Nature, Vol. IV, No. 5, November 1898
TextBUTTERFLIES LOVE TO DRINK
BUTTERFLIES have never had a character for wisdom or foresight. Indeed, they have been made a type of frivolity and now something worse is laid to their charge. In a paper published by the South London Entomological Society Mr. J. W. Tutt declares that some species are painfully addicted to drinking. This beverage, it may be pleaded, is only water, but it is possible to be over-absorptive of non-alcoholics. Excess in tea is not unknown – perhaps the great Dr. Johnson occasionally offended in that respect – and even the pump may be too often visited. But the accuser states that some Butterflies drink more than can be required by their tissues under any possible conditions. It would not have been surprising if, like some other insects, Butterflies had been almost total abstainers, at any rate, from water, and had contented themselves with an occasional sip of nectar from a flower.
MALES ARE THE SINNERS
The excess in drinking seems to be almost a masculine characteristic, for the topers, he states, are the males. They imbibe while the females are busy laying eggs. This unequal division of pleasure and labor is not wholly unknown even among the highest of the vertebrates; we have heard of cases where the male was toping at the "public" while the female was nursing the children and doing the drudgery of the household. Mr. Tutt has called attention to a painful exhibition of depravity which can often be observed in an English country lane, where shallow puddles are common, but never so well as on one of the rough paths that wind over the upper pastures in the Alps. Butterflies are more abundant there than in England, and they may be seen in dozens absorbing the moisture from damp patches. Most species are not above taking a sip now and again, but the majority may be classed as "moderate drinkers." The greater sinners are the smaller ones, especially the blues, and the little Butterfly which, from its appearance, is called the "small copper." There they sit, glued as it were to the mud – so besotted, such victims to intemperance, that they will not rise till the last moment to get out of the way of horse or man. Some thirty years ago Prof. Bonney in his "Alpine Regions," described this peculiarity, saying that "they were apparently so stupefied that they could scarcely be induced to take wing – in fact, they were drunk."
OTHER LIQUIDS ARE LIKED
If we remember rightly, the female occasionally is overcome by the temptation to which her mate so readily falls a victim. But we are by no means sure that Butterflies are drinkers of water only. Certainly they are not particular about its purity; they will swallow it in a condition which would make a sanitarian shudder; nay, we fear that a not inconsiderable admixture of ammoniacal salts increases the attraction of the beverage. It is admitted that both Moths and Butterflies visit sugar, overripe fruit, and the like, but it is pleaded that they do this for food. Perhaps; but we fear this is not the whole truth. The apologist has forgotten that practice of entomologists called "sugaring," which is daubing trunks of trees and other suitable places with a mixture of which, no doubt, sugar is the main ingredient, but of which the attraction is enhanced by a little rum. Every collector knows what a deadly lure this is, and what treasures the dark-lantern reveals as he goes his rounds. True, this snare is fatal only to the Moth, because at night the Butterfly is asleep. If he once adopted nocturnal habits we know where he would be found, for he is not insensible by day to the charms of this mixture.
THE ENVIOUS WREN
On the ground lived a Hen,
In a tree lived a Wren,
Who picked up her food here and there;
While Biddy had wheat
And all nice things to eat
Said the Wren, "I declare, 'tisn't fair!
"It is really too bad!"
She exclaimed – she was mad —
"To go out when it's raining this way!
And to earn what you eat,
Doesn't make your food sweet,
In spite of what some folks may say.
"Now, there is that Hen,"
Said this cross little Wren,
"She's fed till she's fat as a drum;
While I strive and sweat
For each bug that I get,
And nobody gives me a crumb.
"I can't see for my life
Why the old farmer's wife.
Treats her so much better than me.
Suppose on the ground
I hop carelessly round
For awhile, and just see what I'll see."
Said this cute little Wren,
"I'll make friends with the Hen,
And perhaps she will ask me to stay;
And then upon bread
Every day I'll be fed,
And life will be nothing but play."
So down flew the Wren,
"Stop to tea," said the Hen;
And soon Biddy's supper was sent;
But scarce stopping to taste,
The poor bird left in haste,
And this was the reason she went:
When the farmer's kind dame
To the poultry yard came,
She said – and the Wren shook with fright —
"Biddy's so fat she'll do
For a pie or a stew,
And I guess I shall kill her to-night."
– Phœbe Cary.
THE CANADIAN PORCUPINE
It climbs the trees and strips them clean
Of leaf, and fruit, and bark;
Then, creeping where no life is seen,
O'er branches grim and stark,
Begins anew, the bark beneath,
The endless grind of claws and teeth,
Till trees, denuded, naked rise
Like spectres painted on the skies.
Fretful it may be, as its quills are sharp,
But with its teeth it stills the sylvan harp.
C. C. M.
FORMERLY plentiful in the northern United States, but now quite rare in this country, although not so scarce in Canada, is the Urson, otherwise called the Canadian Porcupine. It is the tree or climbing species and is distinguished from other members of the family by its slender body and tail of greater or less length. The Urson attains a length of thirty-two inches, seven and one-half of which are included in the tail. A thick set fur, which attains a length of four and one-half inches on the nape of the neck and changes into sharp spines on the under parts of the body and the tip of the tail, clothes the animal.
The Canadian Porcupine is a native of the forests of North America, ranging as far south as Virginia and Kentucky and as far west as the Rocky Mountains. "The Urson," says Cartwright, "is an accomplished climber and probably never descends a tree in winter, before it has entirely denuded the upper branches of bark. It is most partial to the tenderest roots or seedling trees. A single Urson may ruin hundreds of them during one winter." Audubon states that he passed through woods, in which all the trees had been stripped by this animal, producing an appearance similar to that induced when a forest has been devastated by fire. Elms, Poplars, and Firs furnish its favorite food, and therefore usually suffer more than other trees from its destructiveness.
The nest of this Porcupine is generally found in holes in trees or rocky hollows, and in it the young, usually two, more rarely three or four in number, are born in April or May. The young are easily tamed. Audubon says that one which he possessed never exhibited anger, except when some one tried to remove it from a tree which it was in the habit of mounting. It had gradually become very tame and seldom made any use of its nails, so that he would open its cage and afford it a free walk in the garden. When he called it, tempting it with a sweet potato or an apple, it turned its head toward him, gave him a gentle, friendly look and then slowly hobbled up to him, took the fruit out of his hand, sat down on its hind legs and raised the food to its mouth with its fore-paws. Frequently when it would find the door of the family room open it would enter, approach and rub itself against a member of the family looking up pleadingly as if asking for some dainty. Audubon tried in vain to arouse it to an exhibition of anger. When a Dog came in view matters were different. Then it instantly assumed the defensive. With its nose lowered, all its quills erect, and its tail moving back and forth, it was ready for the fray. The Dog sprang upon the Porcupine with open mouth. That animal seemed to swell up in an instant to nearly double its size, sharply watched the Dog and at the right moment dealt it such a well-aimed blow with its tail that the Mastiff lost courage and set up a loud howl of pain. His mouth, tongue, and nose were full of Porcupine quills. He could not close his jaws, but hurried open-mouthed off the premises. Although the spines were immediately extracted, the Dog's head was terribly swollen for several weeks afterward, and it was months before he entirely recovered.