Studies in the General Physiology and Genetics of Butterflies
To one who has watched day by day the growth and transformations of many butterflies, such a collection in spite of its beauty seems like a gorgeous mausoleum, one misses the reactions of the graceful live creatures in response to sunlight and shadow.
Abstract
T HE exquisite colors of diurnal butterflies are such a source of pleasure to the collector that the amateur is often content with the classification and description of his dried specimens. But to one who has watched day by day the growth and transformations of many butterflies, such a collection in spite of its beauty seems like a gorgeous mausoleum. One misses the reactions of the graceful live creatures in response to sunlight and shadow, to the varying lure of different flowers, to their mates, to man and other giants which invade their field of vision. Each live butterfly has its personality. It behaves, in the first place, according to the customs of its own family, genus and species, for the instincts of each clan differ strikingly as we shall see. It differs, moreover, from other representatives of its own species and even its own brothers and sisters, in vigor, longevity, fondness of the other sex and of its food, its response to light and shade. Let us take for example the colony of caterpillars of Vanessa antiopa from the same mother, which I brought into the laboratory in June, I92.4. They emerged as adults within two or three days of each other during the first week in July. A few caterpillars had died of wilt or flacherie, a boon to the farmer but a pest to the silk raiser and student of genetics, to which one male butterfly succumbed a few days after eclosion.