THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 13 



some other plant, as Mr. Mead observed a female ovipositing on the 

 leaves of a slender, low-growing vine in a thicket near my house, some 

 years ago. We neglected at the time to ascertain the name of this vine 

 and I have since been unable to re-discover it, or to find any plant except 

 Aristolochia upon which the larvae in confinement would feed. Abbot 

 figures Aristolochia serpentaria as the food plant of this species, and Dr. 

 Boisduval says the butterfly is found especially where A. serpentaria grows. 

 The larvae feed upon A. sipho as readily. An old and very large vine of 

 this species covered the front of the house in which I formerly resided at 

 Newburgh, N. Y., and every year was nearly denuded of its leaves by 

 caterpillars of Philenor. How much further north the butterfly lives I am 

 not advised, but to the south and southwest, and on the Pacific coast, it 

 is abundant. So also throughout tropical America and in the West Indies. 

 The eggs are laid in one or two rows of from five to ten in the row, on 

 the under side of the leaves, and are not close together, but separated by 

 narrow spaces. The young larvae betake themselves to the edge of the 

 leaf, and ranging themselves at right angles to this, side by side, feed after 

 the manner of the large Bombycidse. No other species of N. American 

 Papilio with whose early stages I am acquainted has this gregarious habit. 

 This continues till they are half grown, when they separate. They are 

 very active in their movements, far more so than any other of our Papilio 

 larvae, and can travel with great rapidity, and when in motion constantly 

 vibrate their long, flexible, antennse-like appendages. I have found them 

 somewhat cannibalistic in their propensities, devouring each other at 

 times, when the lack of proper food was not the occasion of it. 



I have been in error for several years as to the number of larval 

 moults of Philenor, and several times have spoken of the species as 

 exceptional in this respect — as having five moults, when all our other 

 Papilios have but four. And suspecting a mistake, I have taken great 

 care to ascertain the fact the past season. There are but four moults, as 

 hereinbefore described. The figure of the larva of Philenor in Abbot is 

 fairly correct, but the chrysalis is much out of drawing. Boisduval and 

 LeConte profess to have figured after Abbot, but the larva cannot have 

 been copied from the Insects of Georgia. It is absurdly wrong. There 

 is no sign of the demi-row of lateral appendages, and the long pair on 

 segment 2, which should form part of this row, appear to come from the 

 dorsum, and look like the prongs of a thorn-locust tree. There is also 

 given a lateral row of red knobs like those on dorsum, and which have 



