The Seaforth News, 1960-02-18, Page 3Wonderful Things
$utterflies Po
Butterflies can't taik, but If
they could they'd be able to take
some of the conceit out of mod-
ern man, earrently highly
pleased with himself for send-
ing a rooket round the Moon.
• They traighesay something like
his:
'You humans make us vibrate
our antennae with amusement
when you go wild over shooting
a rocket to the Moon.
"So what? No human travelled
that 238,840 miles through space.
All you did was to fire off a few
tons of matter to do the job for
you, When we make our great
aerial voyages, we use no explo-
sive propellants, no scientific
aids at all, except those with
which Nature has endowed us.
"Let's have a bit less shout-
ing about your Sputniks and
Luniks and a bit more about
what we insects can do!"
And butterflies certainly can
do remarkable things.
One day a naturalist aboard a
British ship in naid-Atlantic was
astonished to see a low-flying
swarm of butterflies. The near-
est land was more than a thous-
and miles away! The naturalist
identified the butterflies as Paint-
ed Ladies, a red -brown ppects
with beautiful wing markings.
Hitherto it had been suppeed.
that butterflies and other 'sfr411,
winged insects were capahle• of
only short range flights. But4sosiv:
the sight of these lovely Painted
Ladies rang a bell in the natural-
ist's mind.
More than a hundred years
before, aboard the famous little
ship, Beagle, the great Charles
Darwin had reported a similar
experience. The naturalist had
with him Darwin's Journal of
that voyage of scientific discov-
ery, so he looked up the rec-
ord to refresh his memory,
It was on a very hot day in
December, 1832, while the Beagle
was steaming off the coast of
Argentine, that her master, Cap-
tain Fitzroy, drew Darwin's at-
tention to a mass of butterflies,
like a snowstorm, coming over
the ocean from the north-west.
Darwin looked through his
telescope. "They are South Ame-
rican Clouded Yellows," he said,
and he later recorded this
strange sight in his Journal.
The observer of the Painted
Ladies was intrigued by a num-
ber of challenging questions.
How could such fragile insects
continue a mass flight across. the
Atlantic, without any "airports"
•BUDDIES - Race horse Bald
Eagle gets nuzzled by one of
the flamingos at Hialeah Park.
for "refuelling" and rest? MUow,.
ing that the maximum speed of
a butterfly hs flight was less than
six miles an hour, the natural-.
ist calculated that this flight of
Painted Ladies had been oontirtu-
ously on the wing for nea1,9t-.:ki""
week!
34M1
This reckoning took Pe aceett,,t-.0
of air currents, but at the eflife.41,
the naturalist saw them the Eittif
aeronauts were battling into a •
head wind!
Why did they make this tre-
Inenclously ardeousrflight? Where
had they come from and where
were they heading? How did
they find their way?
A contribution towards ans-
wers to tisese questions has now
been made, mainly due to the
brilliant work of one naturalist,
Dr. C. B. Williams, F,R.S.
A space rocket taken apart
reveals a complicated assembly
of scientific apparatus. Take a
butterfly apart and there is very
little to be seen,
Yet the butterfly performs
long-distance fights as wonder-
ful, by comparison, as those of
Man's space rockets,
When butterflies make long-
distance flights over land, they
keep going by feeding on the
nectar of flowers. How do they
manage for vast flights over
seas?
The answer is that they draw
their energy from fat reserves
which often amount to as much
as sixty per cent of the total
weight of their tiny "fuselages."
Birds, bats, locusts, butterflies,
and even smaller flyinginsects
have "compasses" built into their
bodies. When butterflies set out
on a great migratory flight, they
follow a compass course, During
the day they steer by the sun; at
night, by the stars.
•When a high house, a ,hill or a
mountain, block their course,
they either die attempting to sur-
mount the obstacle, or fly around
it and resume their course.
This directional sense is also
possessed by fish - the salmon,
for example; can find its way
back from the open sea to the
river where it was spawned.
Go into any airways booking
'office and you will see on the
wall charts of the many air routes
.in operation every day. Butter-
flies have time -tables and charted
routes which are just as precise
as anything man has devised for
his jet •airliners. By means Of
, mass observation it has now been
established -that the long-distance
migratory flights of butterfliea.
and some other insects follow a
tight seasonal time -table.
It has also been established
that 'the same, routes are used
year after year, .though many of
the species using them have a
one-year life -cycle.
Painted Ladies, for example,
always take .off from the Equator
in the spring, returning in the
autumn. Swarms have been ob-
served extending over a hurt*
dred mile front and numbering
hundreds of million' of individ-
uals.
The •easualty rate on these
great flights is enormous. Butter-
flies have many enemies, chief
among which are starlings and
tits. Sometimes large armies of
dragonflies pursue the butterfly
convoy and attack it savagely
from the rear, causing heavy
casualties.
But however heavy the casual-
ties, the numbers are far too
huge for there to be any danger
of• the species becoming extinct.
One swarm obserVed by a noted
Californian naturalist was.estim-
ated to number a thousand: mil-
lion, individuals. -
In Java, when the people see
the annual swarms of butterflies
overhead, they watch them in
ievential awe. Well over a hun-
dred years ago, the great vgl-
cano Krakatoa erupted, causing
great damage and many deaths,
and the Javanese believe that
the migratory butterflies possest
the souls of the victims of that
great disaster.
CROSSWORD
PUZZLE
ACROSS
1. Because
4. Thorn
9. Measure of
length
12. Fruit drink
13. Proportion
14. Spike of corn
• 15. Right
thinking
17. Dependable
19, Exactly
suitable
20. Harass
21. Co before
24, Queer or
foolish
(slang)
27. Gibbon
28, Certain
80. On 000 00080
31. 13uain ess
getter
22, Everlasting
34. Compass
point
35, Horny Beale
117. Young men
28. Sp, title
39. Pang pas
41. Small change
43. Think
46, Electric
particle
40. Fail to f0l!ow
soft
48. Skilled
craftsman
51, Bee (comb,
form)
62, Urgency
54, Sunken fence
56. Dry •
$0. Rendered fat
57, Table surPoll
Answer elsewhere
1. A.t a distance
2. Poem
8. Harvesting
, machine
4. Speak
strongly
against
6. Norse sea
goddess
6. That thing
7.O1.1010
8. Moslem 29, Within: comb.
sacred book form
32. Abscond
33. Desired
28. Sarcastic
88. Contradiction
40. Correct
42, Lobster trap
44. Close
46, Short -napped
47, Dutch
commune
48. Corroded
49, Rider
1 -laggard
heroine
50, Children's
game
03 Silleonsymbol
9. Adjusts a
clock
10. Cereal seed
11. Thirsty
16. Pouch
18. Habitual
20. Raised
platform of
earth
21. Carpenter's
tool
22. Detecting
device
23. Fight
• between t wo
26. Drift
28, Cin pea
1
2
3
-
4
6
6
7
q
.:..;:e.;;.
:".
9
80
11-.-
rg
•
13
'
•
i
16
16
}.
17
•
18
'
-'9
• '....:':::
::?g,';
21
22
22
•
24
,
26
26
27
.,
...
28
.
29
11
30
'
.
11
0
...
,,
.,,,
34
35
36
tg
3 7
39
40
a
41 .
42
llie
43
44
,,,,45
WO,
,
'
,',51g4
44...09
•al
Se
61 •
52
53
SS
• •
504,-
.
1,2d
57
on this page
011111i.
•t„
LOG HOIST WITH BIG APPETITE - Two giant prongs of a log
• hoist reach down a•nd lift the entire load from a truck • i, ane
bite. It can do the same with a railroad car.
IIEFARM FRONT
Only seven Ottawa trees fell
victim to the deadly Dutch elm
disease this year, the Plant Pro-
• tection Division, Canada Depart-
ment of. Agriculture reports.
Samples from 32 trees were
tested.
This bears out the theory that
the most 'effective -method of re-
tarding Dutch elm disease in a
• locality where it has a foothold
.is by tree sanitation and prompt
removal of infected trees.
* * ^ -
It was first discovered in. Ot-
tawa in 1948. The tree in ques-
tion was quickly removed.
The Plant Protection Division,
the National Capital Commis-
sion and the Ottawa Department
• of Recreation and Parks have
'collaborated in • collecting sam-
ples from symptomatic trees and
submitting them to culturing la-
boratories.
A few infected trees have
been found annually since .1960
and have been promptly elimin-
ated. These included trees on
private property.
* 9 4.
There have been 57 trees lost
in Ottawa: one in 1948; three in
1950; 13 in 1951; seven, in 1952;
• four in 1953; two in 1954; four in
1955; two in 56; nine in 1957;
five in 1958; and seven 'this year.
• *
"The small number of infect-
ed trees Tound 11 years after
the first discovery indicates the
program has been effective in
retarding spread in the city," a
Plant Protection Division spokes-
man commented.
"This is in sharp contrast with
'other' eastern Canada munici-
palities where the policy of im-
mediate removal was not carried
out and where a large propor-
tion of the shade elms have suc-
Climbed to the disease."
*
Gypsy moth infestations have
been uncovered in southern
'Quebec and control measures
are under study by federal
authorities. This is the third
time in 85 years that an out-
break of this pest has been re-
ported in Canada.
Assiduous precautions paid off
in the early discovery of this
latest outbreak. For five years,
a constant vigil has been kept
on border areas that seemed
likely targets of the gypsy moth
from the eastern United States.
L. L. Reed, who directs sur-
vey work for the Canada De-
partment of Agriculture, ex-
plained that upwards of 500 sex -
attractant metal traps, loaned by
the United States Department of
Agriculture, are used each year
during the flight season.
* *
Since only the male gypsy
moth flies, cartridges containing
the scent of the female moth
are used to lure them into the
traps where they are caught on
pieces of • cardboard smeared
with tanglefoot.
Only a few male moths were
caught in previous years, Last
fall, though, 97 moths were
trapped - 52 of them in Cha-
teauguay County,
* *
A ground Berm confirmed
the story told by the traps.
ISSUE 7 - 1960
Three distinct infestations were
,brought to light, the largest in-
volving 300 egg masses and the
other two containing 25 and 19
.respectively. Each mass contain-
ed an average of 400 eggs. They.
were found attached to the
trunks of trees and on the un-
dersides of stones adjacent to
the trees on which the larvae
had Ted.
* *
Mr. Reed said the first gypsy
moths were brought from Eur-
ope to Massachusetts by a
French scientists for experirnen-
' tal purposes.
Some cli the moths escaped
and although the authorities
were informed, they were un-
impressed. To them, the moth
was "just another bug." A few
years later, the pest began leav-
ing its trade mark in the shape
of defoliated and dying trees
over hundreds of acres. A con-
centrated effort brought the
outbreak under control, but lax-
ity subsequently allowed the
gypsy moth to 'flourish again.
8' *
F o r nearly a century now,
notes Mr. Reed, the United
States has been paying dearly
for the ill-advised importation.
The gypsy moth at first was
confined to the New England
,States but gradually spread to -
Upsidedown to Prevent Peeking
wards the west and southwest,
In the past few Years, it has
moved up the west sid Q of Lake
Champlain in New York State
and into northern New Jersey
and p arts of Pennsylvania. A
strict Federal quarantine, in ef-
fect for many Years, has retard-
ed more extensive spread.
* * *
Newly hatched larvie spin
the upper branches of the trees
on which they are feeding.
Strong winds break these
threads and larvae may be car-
ried several miles before drop-
ping to new feeding areas. Egg
masses attached to logs, lumber
and quarry products, also con-
tribute to the spread of the pest
when this material is transport-
ed.
Through continued diligence,
Canada proposes to maintain ef-
fective controls over the gypsy
moth.
He Invented That
Quonset Hut
Any serviceMan who ever
lived in a Quonset hut owes a
debt of gratitude - or ingrati-
tude, as the case may be - to
Carl Strand. Anyone who has
enjoyed t h e convenience of
overhead steel garage doors also
can thank Strand. A quick -talk-
ing onetime Sunday -school tea-
cher, Strand had a hand in, de-
veloping both of them. And last
month, an energetic 77 and a
longtime millionaire, Strand was
barking up a new business tree:
Prefabricated doghouses. The
"palaces" will be sold in super-
markets for $15,95 each and,
Strand houes, will eventually
shelter 70 per cent of America's
26 million dogs. Strand doesn't
think dogs need fancy kennels.
'But he asks rhetorically: "Do
they need expensive coats,
rhinestone collars, • or all that
costly dog food? They used to
eat scraps."
Best known for his overhead
steel doors and as founder of
Stran-Steel (now part of Na-
tional Steel Corp.), the husky
septuagenarian isn't entirely
new to the specialized housing
field. His all -steel house won
first prize at the 1934 Chicago
World's Fair, and he was called
upon to design the end sec-
tions and window frames of the
famous Quonset hut.
One project at a time- is
enough for most men of any
age, but it isn't for Strand. Un-
der development in what i,tsW to
be a stable on his suburban De-
troit estate: A "kitty palaee" fer
cats, a prefabricated air -vent
cupola for ranchstyle houses, a
plastic -coated windowsill cover,
and a weatherproof, plastic im-
pregnated wood -fiber door. None
will be on the market for a.
while yet, says Strand, because
"these things take time, damn
it. They take time." From NEWS -
WEEK.
ik UNDAY SC11001
LFISON
By Bev. 13, B. Wauen, RA., 13.Di`
Acts 19:8-10, 23-29, 20:1-3 "
Meeting Organized Oppositioft
Memory Selection; We wrestle
not against flesh and blood, but
against principalities, against
powers, against the rulers of the
darkness of this world, against
sniritnal wickedness In high
places, Ephesians 6:12.
Paul, on his way back to Jeru-
salem on his second missionary
journey, made a brief stop at
Ephesus and preached in the
synagogue. Later, Apollos, a Jew
from Alexandria came and
preached, showing by the Scrip-
tures that Jesus was Christ. On
his third missionary journey,
Paul came to Ephesus again. EDI
asked the disciples, "Have ye re-
ceived the Holy Ghost since ye
believed?" They had received
John's baptism to repentance.
As Paul prayed for them they
were baptized by the Holy'
Ghost. Paul continued there for
about three years preaching the
Word of the Lord Jesus to both
Jews and Greeks. God wrought
special miracles by Paul: "so
that from his body were brought
unto the sick handkerchiefs or
aprons, and the diseases depart-
ed from them, and the evil
spirits went out of them." Many
forsook their superstitions and
make a bonfire of their books of
curious arts, There was a great
turning to God in Ephesus.
Opposition to this spiritual
movement w a s brought to a
head by the silversmiths. Their
business of making images of
the goddess Diana, • was being
endangered because so many
were turning from paganism to
Christ. The city was confused.
The mob rose in an uproar. Paul
was advised to stay out of it.
When the people were quieted.
Paul said farewell to the disci-
ples and went on to Macedonia.
While preaching at Troas till
midnight, a young man, Euty-
chus, fell asleep and tumbled
from a third floor window and
was taken up dead. Paul em-
braced him in faith and the
youth lived.
Perhaps the reason that there
is little open organized opposi-
tion to the church in this coun-
try is that the church is doing'
so little to disturb the forces
of evil. Paul, the Man Who wl'pte
half the books of the New Tes-
tament, had to leave most of the
towns where he preached. The
genuine conversions under his
ministry stirred the powers cd
darkness. Jesus said, "Woe unto
you, when all men shall speak
well of you! for so did their fa-
thers to the false prophets."
Luke 6:26.
ROMAN STAGE - Marble relief depioting an ancient Roman
travelling coach Is reproduced on this Austrian stamp, done in
black and white. The vehicle is believed to be a prototype of
the stagecoach.
THEY WEREN'T KIDDING - The sign by this canal bridge in Apeldoorn, Holland, gave a
maximum weight of one ton. The driver of this trailer truck loaded with 12 tons of iron
pipe perhaps thought - like motorists everywhere - that sign makers are lust alarmists.
But they weren't kidding.