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April 01, 1962 - Early Spring Butterflies Hourning Cloak and Spring Azure Butterflies Exclusive Sunday Review Sketch by Dennis Puleston of Brookhaven Focus on Nature (Today's column is written by Martha Meinke. No stranger here, Mrs Meinke's last article concern- ed the wintertime and today we are fortunate to have her article on Early Spring Butterflies. This is a field surrounded by mystery and wonder; I think you will en- joy it. PS) EARLY SPRING BUTTERFLIES An eager searcher for signs of spring may come upon a mourn- ing cloak butterfly in the woods while there is still snow on the ground. This butterfly does not migrate as does the monarch and the painted lady. It passes the winter in some sheltered spot such as in a tree hollow, under the loose bark of a fallen tree, or in a woodpile, protected from direct exposure to the weather. At winter's end it is the first but- terfly to come out of hibernation and take to the wing. Occasionally, even before winter is over the mourning cloak will come out to sun itself, always carefully placing itself with hind end toward the sun and purple brown wings at right angles to the warm rays. The wings are edged in straw yellow bordered with blue dots. Underneath they are brown black. The wing span may be as much as three and a half inches. When elms, willows and poplars leaf out, female mourning cloaks deposit their eggs in clusters around the twigs. The larvae hatch out with in a few weeks as velvety black caterpillars covered with spines and splotched with white dots and a few red. The cater- pillars of an egg cluster -stay to- gether ranging themselves side by side on the nearest leaf and eat- ing their way to the margin. They march from leaf to leaf, each spinning a silken thread as it goes forming a sort of webbed carpet or foothold. Moulting Caterpillar After feeding steadily for about a week, the growing caterpillar slips out of its tight skin has split up the back, a little larger wih a new skin already formed. It is quiet for a brief while during this moulting, but soon takes up its voracious feeding again. This goes on for three more weeks and three more moultings until the caterpillar reaches a full size of two inches. The full grown caterpillars leave the tree on which they have been feeding, each seeking a shel- tered spot to pupate - under a stump, perhaps, or along the underside of a fence. Here it spins a silken web along the surface, hooks its hind legs into the tangle and hanging head down, becomes encased like a mummy in a gray brown pupa or chrysalis. Gradual changes take place in its body and after a week or two it emer- ges, a perfectly formed butterfly. Upon first coming out of the chrysalis, the butterfly's wings are small, although its body, antennae and legs are well devel- oped. It clings to the empty chry- salis while its wings expand, crawls to a nearby support where it rests quietly for a half hour or more, slowly opening and clos- ing its wings to exercise the mus- . cles, and finally launches itself into its new life. Thrilling Phenomenon There is probably no phenomen- on in the world of living creatures more thrilling than this metamor- phosis of caterpillar into butter- fly. A good way to view it is by finding the striped caterpillar of the monarch butterfly on milk- weed in the summer and placing it in a glass jar with a branch of the food plant. Butterflies feed by drawing up nectar through a long curled "tongue ". Mourning cloaks in the early spring suck the sap of fresh cut trees or where squirrels have gnawed the bark. They 'like the nectar from the blossoms of wil- low catkins and trailing arbutus and other flowers as the season gets on. Later they sip the juice from fallen apples. When liquid food is no longer available the mourning cloaks go into hiberna- tion. Spring Azure Our other early butterfly, the spring azure, hibernates in the pupal state and is the first of our native butterflies to emerge from the over wintering pupae. It too may be seen before all traces of snow have vanished, fluttering around dogwood buds, looking for the first flowers. Spring azures are small, mea- suring barely an inch across the wings which are violet blue above and below ash gray, more or less spotted with dark brown. They like sunny open locations where they fly about in a slow dancing man- ner often close to the ground. The eggs of the spring azure are laid on flower buds of various plants especially those which have clustered racemes of blossoms. The eggs hatch into minute slug - like larvae which feed upon the buds. The chrysalids are attached to a central flower stalk. There are two broods in this area, (as with the mourning cloak, also), adults emerging in mid -March to April, again in May and June. FIELD OBSERVATIONS Martha Meinke reports: Captree State Park - March 16 Dovekie by Paul Stoutenburgh Nassau Point - March 17 Redpoll (6) Mrs E Halsey Howell reports: Southampton - Daily at feeder Cowbird (10) Evening Grosbeak (3) House Finch (5) L R Ernest reports: Mecox - March 25 Piping Plover (5) Shinnecock - March 25 Piping Plover (5) Water Mill - March 26 Purple Finch (4) Wainscott - March 26 Killdeer Wilson's Snipe Carolina Wren East Hampton - March 26 Phoebe Field Trip to South side by Pules. ton, Hlama, Bennett, Stouten- burgh & Swiatocha: Mecox - March 24 Osprey American Merganser Green - winged Teal Scaup Black Duck North Sea - March 24 Sharp - shinned Hawk Purple Finch East Hampton - March 24 Snow Goose Red - tailed Hawk Myrtle Warbler Horned Lark Sparrow Hawk Mourning Dove Pheasant Canvas -back Buffle -head Ring- necked Duck Also observed: Mourning Cloak Butterfly Wood Frogs (singing) Peepers Kenny Liehr reports: Great Horned Owl (nesting) Please send all comment-s and field observations to Paul Stout - enburgh, RD No 1, Box 105, Bay Avenue, Cutchogue, N Y.