OF WASHINGTON. 113 



sycophanta found in May, 1877, survived three winters, the 

 winter rest lasting seven months. A specimen of Cetonia Jlori- 

 cola (sex not stated) found hibernating October 5, 1846, was 

 kept alive until May 22, 1849. It was fed throughout the whole 

 year and did not become torpid during the three winters of its 

 existence. A Buprestid beetle ( Capnodes tenebrionis) was kept 

 alive from May 13, 1888, to April 28, 1889, being active during 

 the winter. Seven specimens of Blaps mortisuga were kept 

 alive five years in a tin box, dying during the extreme cold of 

 the sixth winter. On the contrary, all his attempts to keep the 

 common Stag Beetle of Europe (^Lucanus cervus L.) alive longer 

 than a few weeks failed, as the specimens never lived beyond 

 August. L. von Albrecht Weiss records some observations on 

 the life of the impregnated Hydrophilus piceus L. which he 

 kept alive in confinement from February to October of the same 

 year (Stett. Ent. Zeit. 1889, p. 343). J. H. Rouzet in a "Note 

 sur la longevity de la vie dans Blaps " (Annales Soc. Ent. de 

 France, 1856, Bull. p. 4) records having kept a number of 

 Blaps fatidica in a tightly corked closed vessel from the winter 

 of 1849-50 to November, 1855, when the last one died without 

 having fed on the bodies of his associates. Boisduval (Annales 

 Soc. Ent. de Erance 1853, Bull. p. 64) mentions that a Bupres 

 tid beetle, undetermined, had lived as larva " at least twenty 

 years within a piece of furniture," and Al. Laboulbene, in the 

 same number, remarked on a jHesperophanes, the larva of which 

 must have lived ten years in the wood of a chair. Henry Baker, 

 in the Philosophical Transactions, 1740, Vol. 41, pp. 441-8, re 

 cords some experiments showing that Blaps mortisuga lived 

 three years without food. In all cases like these the conditions 

 of life were abnormal, and the same species, under normal cir 

 cumstances, would doubtless have performed all their life functions 

 and perished in much less time. It is even questionable whether 

 any beetles in the imago state live longer than one year under 

 natural conditions which permit the normal exercise of their life 

 activities. 



LEPIDOPTERA. In this Order there is less variation in the term 

 of life, as I do not know of a single species where the individual 

 can be said to exist, under normal conditions, beyond a single 

 year. While a certain number of the species hibernate in the 

 adult or in the larva state, the great bulk" of them hibernate 

 either in the egg or in the pupa state. In the butterflies proper the 

 more common method with those which are monogoneutic is that 

 the longest or winter period is passed in the pupa or chrysalis 

 state ; but some of the more cosmopolitan species live longest as 

 adults, the last generation produced developing exceptional vitality, 



