UNUSUAL HOBBY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 121, 24 May 1935, Page 14

UNUSUAL HOBBY.

BREEDING BUTTERFLIES THE COLOURFUL MONARCH.

The breeding of butterflies ie the hobby of Mr. T. S. Skeates, of Titirnngi. and he is hopeful that the Monarch butterfly, the largest of its kind in Xew Zealand, will spread widely in parks and reserves. This butterfly, which in thought to have worked its way down the Pacific, was known to the Maoris of New Zealand 100 year l3 ago. In the past 40 years it line been rare, nnd only occasional specimens have bee-« reported.

Mr. Skeates says thut the Monarch is not harmful. He lias been breeding it for the past three years, and the strange collection has attracted quite a lot of notice from visitor*.

•The official name of the Monarch is Dninie plexippus. It has a wing spread of 4in and over, and Its upper wing colours are orange, red, yellow, blueblack, black and white, with the under side of the wing just as beautiful in variegated colours. The egg stage is followed by tho caterpillar, and then the chryealid, "of a rich green colour with yeliow specks like gold quartz. Mr. Skeaten has found flint when in the caterpillar stage three food plants are used—the asplepiaj?, a well-known flowering shrub, the swan plant, whose pods are used for floating in bowls of water, and the weed called dogbane. "Spare the butterfly" is the appeal which Mr. Skcates is making. He siiye that, unlike the white, butterfly, the Monarch deserve* nothing but encouragement. This year he hns bred and liberated about 250 Monarch butterflies, and from Titirangi they are now spreading farther afield. Their short and gay life extends from six weeks to perhaps a couple of months—a typical butterfly existence.