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Butterflies and Moths, Shown to the Children

Chapter 17: PLATE VII THE LARGE HEATH (1)
By Theodore Wood
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About This Book

The book introduces children to common butterflies and moths, explaining their life cycle from egg through caterpillar, repeated molts, pupal stages in chrysalids or cocoons, and emergence as adults; it describes wing scales, the coiled proboscis used for feeding, and observable features that distinguish butterflies from moths such as antennal shape, body constriction, and resting wing posture. Short, accessible text accompanies forty-eight colored plates depicting adults and caterpillars with brief identification notes, and it offers practical tips on where to find eggs, caterpillars, and chrysalids and how to observe these insects safely.

PLATE VII

1. Large Heath
2. Small Heath

PLATE VII
THE LARGE HEATH (1)

This butterfly is very nearly as plentiful as the “meadow-brown,” and you can hardly walk along a lane or through a meadow without seeing it. The male is rather different from the female, for he is a good deal smaller, and has a band of dark brown running down from just above the middle of the front wings to the centre of the hind margin.

The caterpillar of this butterfly feeds upon couch-grass. It is greenish-grey in colour, with a reddish head, and has two pale lines running along each of its sides, and a dark one along its back. When it has reached its full size it spins a kind of little silken pad upon a blade of grass, from which it hangs itself up with its head downwards. Two days later it throws off its skin and turns into a fat little greenish-white chrysalis, marked with a number of dark streaks and blotches. Look for the caterpillar in May and the early part of June, for the chrysalis at the end of June, and for the butterfly in July and August.

PLATE VII
THE SMALL HEATH (2)

Of course you know this butterfly very well indeed by sight, for it is extremely common everywhere on heaths and downs and in grassy fields and in lanes from the beginning of June until the end of September. You may often see it gambolling about in company with “meadow-browns” and the pretty little blue butterflies, which are generally so common at the same time of the year. It is quite a small insect, for it only measures about an inch and a quarter across the wings; but in Scotland, strange to say, it is generally a good deal larger than it is in England.

The caterpillar of this butterfly is a little apple-green creature, with a darker stripe edged with white running along its back, and another along each of its sides. It feeds upon grass, and when it is fully fed it spins a kind of silken belt round a grass-stem, fastens itself to it with its head hanging downwards, and then changes into a bright green chrysalis with a short purple stripe, bordered with white, on each side.