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The Forms of the Spring Azure
BOREAL AMERICA (Labrador to Alaska).
Only one brood, dimorphic.
C. ladon lucia.
C. ladon violacea.
LAT. 45°-41° N. (Montreal to Long Island).
Two broods.
I. Winter Forms or first generation.
C. ladon lucia.
C. ladon marginata.
C. ladon violacea.
II. Summer Form or second generation.
C. ladon neglecta.
LAT. 41°-38° OR 39° N. (Long Island to West Virginia). I. Winter Forms or first generation.
C. ladon violacea.
C. ladon ladon.
II. Summer Form or second generation.
C. ladon neglecta.
SOUTH OF 38° OR 39° N. (West Virginia to Gulf of Mexico). I. Winter Forms or first generation.
C. ladon violacea (male and female).
C. ladon violacea-nigra (male).
C. ladon ladon.
II. Summer Form or second generation.
C. ladon neglecta.
Remarkable organs exist in the seventh and eighth abdominal segments of the larvæ of certain Lycænids. These have been studied more carefully in this than in other species. There is a slit on the middle line of the dorsal part of the seventh abdominal segment. From this opening the caterpillar can protrude a membranous vesicle, from the summit of which exudes a small drop of clear, sweet fluid, a kind of honey-dew. Ants feed upon this; and there doubtless exists between the Lycænid larvæ possessing this organ and various species of ants relations similar to those existing between aphids and ants; as Mr. Edwards observed an ant successfully defend a larva of the spring azure from an attack of an ichneumon-fly. Upon the eighth abdominal segment there is a pair of openings from each of which can be protruded a membranous tube, furnished at the tip with numerous, long, slender tentacles. These in turn are armed with fine filamentous spurs disposed in whorls. The function of these organs has not been determined; they may be scent-organs for the attraction of ants.
CATERPILLAR.-Length, two-fifths of an inch; slug-shaped, dark brown head. Body white with a dusky line down the back and a greenish tinge along the sides.
Food-plants. Dogwood, Actinomeris, black snakeroot, sumac, Spiræa, and others. In the early spring when we are weary of winter this butterfly appears in our path like a fleck of the welcome blue sky above. It flits about on uncertain wing or loafs about damp places or hovers about the forest mantle. It is one of the butterflies that we have repeatedly seen winging lazily in and out the topmost branches of a chestnut oak in front of our windows. What though the spring azure appears in Protean forms! The more incarnations of a butterfly so beautiful the better.
The spring azure's caterpillar loves to bore into the very heart of the flower, and is of undoubted assistance to Nature in her great work of blossom pruning.
Or is thy luster drawn from heavenly hues, A sumptuous drifting fragment of the sky?