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Show Nature Has Qualified Butterfly as Chemist In a report to the Smithsonian Institution In-stitution Dr. Austin H. Clark marvels, mar-vels, and with reason, at the curious adaptability of the cabbage butterfly, a small chalky insect with white wings. In Europe the caterpillars feed on the leaves of cabbages and closely related plants. Why these? Because they contain food of the proper chemical composition for the young, and the young are bred from eggs laid on the loaves. About the middle of the last century cen-tury the cabbage butterfly was brought to this country. It began to lay eggs not only on cabbage but also on the leaves of the garden nasturtium, which originally came from Central and South America. How did the butterfly know that the nasturtium is chemically of the right composition, although It is not even remotely related to the cabbage? The European ancestors of the cabbage cab-bage butterfly knew nothing of the nasturtium for thousands of generations. genera-tions. The wonder grows when Doctor Clark points out uncanny powers in other Insects. Two varieties of fritillaries live entirely on the hack-berry hack-berry tree. If they make a mistake in the tree the young starve to death. ! New York Times. t |