Cjje Canablan ^ntjomobj^si 



VOL. VII. LONDON, ONT., MAY, 1875. No. 5 



SOME NOTES ON LYC.ENA PSEUDARGIOLUS. 



BY W. H. EDWARDS, COALBURGH, W. VA. 



In September, 1873, Mr. T. L. Mead, who was then at Coalburgh, 

 observed a $ pseudargiolus depositing eggs upon the flowers of Actinomeris 

 squarrosa, and on examining the flower heads found a number of eggs. 

 He brought home two of the females, and enclosed them in a muslin bag 

 upon the flower heads of the same plant, near my house, the plant being 

 not at all an uncommon one here. Several eggs were soon deposited, 

 and in due time the larvae were hatched and some of them were carried 

 through to chrysalids, a change which occurred about the middle of October. 

 The flowers of squarrosa becoming scarce before the caterpillars were 

 mature, I tried the flowers of an allied plant, A. hclianthoides, and found 

 them to answer equally well. The eggs are laid singly on the still unde- 

 veloped flower, and the larva feeds on the petals or eats its way to the seed 

 vessel. In no instance have I seen it feed upon the leaf of the plant. 

 The chrysalids of this lot were found to be dead in the spring of 1874. 



In September, 1874, I noticed the females of same species hovering 

 about squarrosa, and confining some of them as before, obtained 

 eggs, and three of the larvae from these I succeeded in bringing to 

 chrysalis. Late in the winter the chrysalids were placed in the greenhouse, 

 and on the 13th of Feb'y, 1875, there emerged from them three true 

 violacea, 1 $ , 2 °_ . This unexpected result shows violacea to be the 

 spring form of pseudargiolus. Violacea never appears here after the last of 

 April or the first few days of May. If the weather is pleasant through 

 April, it is extremely abundant from the first to the middle of the month. 

 The first violacea which appear come in the warm days of March, so 

 that their entire period in the imago is not far from six weeks, and after 

 that no more are seen till the following spring. On the other hand, 

 pseudargiolus appears from the 10th of May to the 1st of June ; about the 

 1st of July there is a second brood, and one or two others during the 

 summer. 



