Insect miscellanies / [by James Rennie].

  • James Rennie
Date:
1831
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Insect miscellanies / [by James Rennie]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    60/436 page 44
    Chapter III. SMELL IN INSECTS, When a brood of the large tortoiseshell butterfly (Vanessa polychlorus) is observed frequenting a row of elm trees, they may all be speedily attracted to a particular branch by putting a little honey on the leaves, and thus the collector may secure as many as he shall require. This circumstance is to be attributed wholly, as it appears to us, to the acute scent of the insects, who no doubt mistake it for some melliferous flower. We have observed, indeed, that butterflies of all species, though far from being voracious feeders, will often dart down from a considerable height upon a flower beneath their track, even when their leading object seemed to be very different from searching for food. This struck us more particularly in a narrow garden at Havre de Grace, enclosed with stone walls fifteen feet high; for no butterfly, in passing over it, omitted to descend for the purpose of visiting the blossoms of an alpine bluebottle (Ceiitaurea mon- tana), whose smell, however, to our organs, is far from being powerful enough to be perceived at the distance of one foot, much less at fifteen or twenty feet, as it must have been by the butterflies ; for we often saw the painted lady (Cynthia Cardui), and other high flying species, alight there*. These facts will appear more remarkable, if we believe, with M. Le Cat,—though he gives no reason for his opinion, but puts us off with a simile—that odours, * J. R.
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3