A RHAPSODY IN BUIE

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 4230, 15 October 1935, Page 2

A RHAPSODY IN BUIE

Anyone who holiday-makes on the north coast of Cornwall has an opportunity of seeing one of the most wonderful butterflies in the world, writes Crispin Ross, in the ‘ Daily Mail.” It is called the Large Blue, being if a bright Cambridge blue with black Jots on the forewings and a black idging to all four wings. It frequents the downs where wild thyme grows •imid the furze bushes. This butterfly is at present busy laying its eggs on the flowers of the .hyme—and particularly on those plants growing on or near ants’ nests. A week or so later the tiny caterpillars hatch out and begin to eat the flowers about them. They eat more than sweet-scented thyme blossom, however; they are little cannibals and eat one another whenever they get the chance. As most people know, a caterpillar sheds its skin from time to time, The •aterpillar of the Large Blue has three >f these moults, and after the third—which usually occurs in August—it reforms its habits, for the time being, \nd ceases to be a caunibak Instead, it goes wandering into the neighbouring country. What it wants it does not seem quite to know. It travels somewhat aimlessly here and there till it meets a foraging ant. As soon as the ant sees the caterpillar it hails it as a long-lost friend—or a returning prodigal! It caresses it and strokes it ith its antenms (or feelers), and the caterpillar responds by exuding from its body a little bead of liquid. This is apparently what the ant is after. It gobbles it up and continues the process for an hour or more, sometimes taking a walk as though to shake down the feast and make room for more. When the caterpillar thinks it has provided enough of this nectar, it undergoes a peculiar transformation. It swells up just behind the head. The ant, seei; g this, seizes it in its jaws and drags it off to the ant-hill. What does it do there? it eats the young of its hosts, which seems the basest ingratitude. For five or six weeks it feeds steadily on ant larvae. Then it settles down to hibernate, choosing as its sleeping place the spot where the biggest and fattest larvae are being tended by the worker ants. When it awakes in spring its food is ready to hand. It devours the juicy youngsters that surround it without Vi much as moving from the spot. It remains there, in fact, until June. Then, like all other caterpillars, it changes into a pupa or chrysalis. In about a month the butterfly emerges—still underground. By some marvellous means it finds its way through the multitudinous passages of the ant-hill and crawls out into the sunlight, to climb a stem cf grass or gorse so that its wings may dry and expand