“Curious Habit of a Brazilian Moth”

Abstract

IN NATURE for May 17, 1883 (p. 55), appeared a letter entitled as above, by Mr. E. Dukinfield Jones, in which the author stated that he had observed a kind of moth in Brazil engaged in sucking up water in large quantity through its proboscis. I may say that this strange habit is not confined to Panthera apardalaria, as I have observed the same thing in two species of butterfly (Papilio orisabus, B., and Appias saba, F.), and imagine that the phenomenon is by no means rare. These two butterflies are very common by the sides of streams and damp places on the Ankay plain in Madagascar.