Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 27.djvu/616

596 The order Lepidoptera comprises many species of great importance in effecting the process of fertilization. Their large wings are well adapted for rapid flight from flower to flower, and their long proboscis enables them to reach the honey even when the nectary lies at the bottom of a very long and narrow corolla-tube.

The position assumed by the butterflies when engaged in abstracting the honey deserves notice. The wings, which during flight flutter to and fro with a rapid motion, are folded together perpendicularly over the body, in which position they are maintained so long as the insect remains poised on the flower (Fig. 1). The butterfly is thus enabled more readily to escape detection by its many enemies (e. g., birds) than if, when resting, its brilliant wings were outspread. The under surface of the wings is usually of a much less striking color than the upper, and consequently does not prove so attractive. It even happens in many instances that butterflies only visit such flowers as are of the same color as their own wings, this precaution, of course, rendering detection extremely difficult. Many blue butterflies show a marked preference for blue meadow-flowers, while in the Alps the scarlet lilies and many of the orange-colored Compositæ are visited almost exclusively by butterflies of like hue. The moths, while extracting honey, do not assume a position similar to that of the butterflies, but hover over the flowers, their wings rapidly vibrating meanwhile.

The butterflies are excellent honey-hunters, because, as already said, their proboscis is very highly developed. It arises from the head midway between the eyes (A, Fig. 2), and frequently exceeds the entire body of the insect in length. When not in use, it is kept coiled up like a watch-spring (I, II), but can be uncoiled at will, and thrust deep down into the nectary of a flower. The proboscis is hollow, and the honey is sucked up by the extreme tip.

In the butterfly the proboscis is the only part of the mouth that is fully developed. In many insects the mouth is very complicated in structure; but in the butterfly a number of the parts are almost entirely suppressed. The labial palpi (I, II, III), however, are usually pretty well marked. They are long and narrow, and are densely covered with hairs. To these hairs the pollen adheres, while the butterfly is engaged in sucking the honey, and by them it is carried to the stigma of the next flower the insect enters.