WeRead Powered by ReaderPub
Butterflies and Moths, Shown to the Children cover

Butterflies and Moths, Shown to the Children

Chapter 47: PLATE XXIII THE SMALL ELEPHANT HAWK (3)
By Theodore Wood
Open in WeRead

Explore more books like this:

Children & Young Adult ReadingNature/Gardening/Animals

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 XXIII

1. Elephant Hawk2. Elephant Hawk Caterpillar
3. Small Elephant Hawk

PLATE XXIII
THE ELEPHANT HAWK (1 and 2)

If you were only to see this moth itself, and not its caterpillar, you would be quite sure to wonder why it should ever have been called the “Elephant” Hawk. For it is not in the least like an elephant in any way at all. But the moment you look at the caterpillar you understand why this name was given to it; for the front part of its body is so long and slender that it really does remind one rather of an elephant’s trunk. And just behind it, on each side, is a big round spot which looks like an eye.

If you want to find this curious caterpillar you should look for it in August on willow-herb and bedstraw plants which grow on the banks of ditches and streams. Now and then, too, you may find it feeding on fuchsias in gardens. It is sometimes green in colour, and sometimes dull grey or brown, and the horn at the end of its body is black, with a white tip. The moth, as you will see by its picture, is a very pretty one indeed, and you may see it hovering in front of flowers at dusk in May and June.

PLATE XXIII
THE SMALL ELEPHANT HAWK (3)

This is a much smaller insect than the last, for its wings only measure about an inch and three-quarters from tip to tip when they are fully spread out. But it is one of the prettiest of all our British moths, with a rose-coloured body, and greenish-yellow wings marked with rose-coloured bands and spots. It is not at all uncommon, and if you want to see it you can very easily do so. All that you have to do is to stand at dusk on a warm evening in June in front of a honeysuckle bush, and then to remain perfectly still. After a few minutes you are almost sure to see a shadowy form hovering in front of one of the blossoms. This is a Small Elephant Hawk; and if you catch it, and wait for a little while, another one is almost sure to make its appearance in a very few minutes.

The caterpillar of this moth is something like that of the “large elephant hawk,” but has three eye-like spots on each side of its body, and no horn upon its tail. It feeds upon bedstraw, and is generally found in places where the soil is chalky.