THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 161 



least as far north as Port Royal, S. C, from which place I have seen an 

 example. It is a tropical species, however, and abounds in Central 

 America and the Antilles. By the kindness of Dr. Wm. Wittfeld, of 

 Indian River, eggs were obtained by tying the females in bags over stems 

 of Passitlora, and after several failures, owing to delays on the journey, I 

 received 30th Aug., 18S0, larv^ of different sizes. The eggs had been 

 mailed very soon after laying, and the larvje had hatched on the road. I 

 gave them Passiflora coerulea. All the changes take place with great 

 rapidity, scarcely two days being necessary for each larval stage. When 

 mature, being porcelain-white, with their long black body and head spines, 

 they are conspicuous objects, and very pretty ones. They move about 

 actively, and in habit and general appearance — except color — remind one 

 of Agraulis Vanillae. Dr. Wittfeld informs me that on touching the 

 chrysalis of Charitofiia, it wriggles about and gives out a perceptible 

 creaking noise, but I had not observed this with my chrysalids.* The 

 chrysalis is a most remarkable object, from its general shape and the 

 thorny flattened projections on the abdomen, and the foliaceous 

 processes on the head. 



Several imagos came forth in my room and one of them I turned 

 loose in the garden, placing it carefully upon a Passion flower. It rested 

 some moments, with wings fully expanded over the flower and depressed 

 a little below horizontal, and then flew slowly away toward the woods and 

 I saw it no more. 



Dr. Wittfeld informs me that these butterflies frequent paths in the 

 woods, or are found feeding at a little distance from the woods, to which 

 they at once betake themselves, if alarmed, and that with rapid wing, 

 though usually their flight is rather heavy and measured. Also that they 

 have the habit of gathering in flocks towards night and roost on Spanish 

 moss, and on dry twigs of trees, especially such as have dead leaves still 

 hanging to them. He has seen them so roosting, always with heads up, 

 to number of 50 or 60. In the morning, after the sun is well up, they 

 cou.e trooping from the woods in search of flowers. 



* In Part II of Dr. Weismann's Studies in the Theory of Descent, Lond. con. 

 1 88 1, is an abstract of a paper by Dr. Fritz Miiller, on Brazilian butterflies, in which it 

 is stated that "the pupae of Heliconius when moving their posterior segments rapidly, 

 as they do whenever they are disturbed, produce a very perceptible hissing noise by the 

 friction of these segments, this sound perhaps serving to terrify small foes." 



