Cly Arabian dSntomoIogbt 



VOL. VII. LONDON, ONT., SEPTEMBER, 1875. No. 9 



NOTES UPON SOME BUTTERFLY EGGS AND LARVAE. 



BY THEODORE L. MEAD, NEW YORK. 



During the past month (July) I have endeavored to obtain the eggs 

 and larvae of some of the butterflies common near this place (Hunter), in 

 the Catskill Mountains, and have met with considerable success. 



The most interesting discovery was that of the food plant of Phyciodes 

 t/iaros, which had baffled all my endeavors for the past four or five years, 

 during which time Mr. Edwards and myself have tried a great number of 

 plants without avail. 



Once, indeed, as has been recorded in a previous volume, we obtained 

 a number of eggs from females enclosed in a glass jar with grass, but the 

 larvae refused to feed and died. 



This summer, remembering that the congeneric nycteis and Harrisii 

 feed on Composite, I prepared a large box by partly filling it with earth 

 and transplanting into this small specimens of all the common Com- 

 posite I could lay my hands upon. The box was covered with gauze and 

 about a dozen $ Phyciodes marcia and tharos introduced. In a few days 

 I examined the leaves and found six patches of eggs upon one of the 

 plants, the number of eggs in a patch varying from twenty to about one 

 hundred and fifty. The plant proved to be a species of Aster, very com- 

 mon here in wet places and by the roadside ; no specimens are in bloom 

 as yet (Aug. 2nd), but from the leaves I think it will prove to be Aster 

 Novce-Anglice. No eggs were found on any of the other plants. After 

 finding these, I transferred the females of marcia which still remained 

 alive to a smaller box with living food-plants ; these have now laid 

 several more large patches of eggs. 



On the 31st of July I succeeded in finding a brood of young cater- 

 pillars upon a plant of this Aster growing in a damp meadow. The 

 larvae feed upon the under side of the leaf in the same way as those of 

 nycteis, leaving the upper surface untouched. Those of the first moult 



