Cicada And Butterfly

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 29, 4 February 1939, Page 11 (Supplement)

Cicada And Butterfly

The absence of the real summery weather such as we experienced 12 months ago has had the effect among other things of producing a "quiet" season as far as several varieties of well-known insects are concerned.

I wonder how many of us have lain out-of-doors, trying to keep cool under the trees as wc did last summer and listening at the same time to the incessant songs of the cicada?

Xot many, I think; and similarly we have not seen the hordes of white butterflies hovering over our gardens and fields, nor had to hear and track, down so often the busy buzz of the Mason wasp as lie built so persistently in odd corners of the house. The evenings, too, have not brought forth the mosquito and the moth as a hot summer would do, and there has* not been the same chirping of the friendly yet elusive cricket in the grass on summer evenings when so much else is still.

However, in spite of all this, I think we all know something of the insects I have just mentioned. To begin with the cicada; we know its. song at least, but how many know that the cicada has live eyes? Yes, It has; there are two prominent eyes, the ordinary eyes, I suppose we may call them, and then 011 the top of its head there are three tiny eyes arranged in a triangular position. This insect, which loves hot weather and is most persistently vocal 011 drowsy, summer afternoons, belongs to the order Orthoptera, which, in the insect world means that it possesses four wings, two of which are leathery protective members, and the other two gauzy.

The latter's antennae (or feelers) are very short, as is also the broad head; and the well-known click - clack noise heard 011 hot days is produced when the cicada beats the tough edges of the two leathery wings against the post, branch or wall ui)on which it is resting. The singing part of the chorus—the "ezzz" sound—is made by some inter-action of a tense vibrating membrane located beneath the wings, and of a protruding muscle. We are told that it is the male cicada who docs the singing, and although it might appear, in a really hot season, that he works overtime, yet Mrs." Cicada does her share of work, too, for she lays something like 500 eggs, which she deposits in the crevices and cracks to be found in the bark of twigs and small branches. The larva from each, egg later drops into the ground where it may live as a beetle-shaped affair for several years, finally emerging oil a hot day. Up on the trunk of a tree it climbs, gaining a firm hold with the front claws, and then like a little boy out-growing his clothes, it splits the outer covering and discards it, leaving it where we can readily find it, in company with

| dozens of other similarly discarded outer garments. There can be no regrets if the white butterfly has not been as conspicuous this slimmer as it has been during some seasons. At any rate, apart from the damage this pest may have been doing nearer the ground and under the leaves .of cabbages aild kindred vegetables,. we have not had to witness the discouraging sight of hundreds and hundreds of these white-winged creatures fluttering and hovering over field and garden, as is the ease when a- hot summer sun beats down upon the, world below. The tiny caterpillars which hatch out from the eg"s which are laid on the underside of the leaves of plants of the cabbage variety, do not take long in making their way to the heart of the plant concerned, where they set about eating holes* in the leaves for nearly a month before reaching the pupae stage. Some seven or eight days later the butterflies emerge front the pupae, and the process begins

again. Thus we see that in a long summer, the rate of multiplication is rapid, and it is not remarkable that "in less than 110 time" this became one of tlie most dreaded pests.

11l England this, is one of tlie-com-moncst butterflies, and there, too, tlie rapidly multiplying larvae do serious damage to garden crops. When fully .expanded the wings of this species measure about 2J in

SUMMER INSECTS ... ...

across, being marked with the unmistakable patches of black. The two pairs of wings are attached to the - second and. third ■ segments respectively of the ten-segmented body ot the butterfly, the front wings, which carry more of the black marking be in"' somewhat narrower and less rounded at their outer edges than the other pair.

8y.... Olga P. Burton

The general wliite colour of the wings is due to the presence of countless tiny white scales which overlap and cover both wing surfaces (this gives the family name of "Lepidoptera" to moths and butterflies, as it is derived from the Greek word "lepis," which means "a scale").

Although the black markings are much the same in both male and female wings, they are, if anything, more extensive on the latter, and there is the one distinction whereby we see on the upper surface of the fore-wings of the female butterfly two additional black spots, one above the other, situated towards the outer edge of the wings.

On the-, lower-side of the wings, however, hoth have the two black spots, and . the general colour of the underside of the wings is a yellowish "y green,'this colouring being more pronounced on the hind wings. When resting, the white . butterfly's? raises its wings over its back, so that." only this underside is to be seen, and' this makes it hardsr to locate when " it is resting upon leaves of plants. V: