144 ' THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



On page 73, of Vol. XII., Can. Ent., Mr. Edwards referred to the 

 above extract and then continued as follows : — 



" I now am of the opinion that there are two annual broods. The experience in 

 fall of 1878, with those larvx^ oi Alcestis which proceeded to feed instead of going into 

 lethargy, and passed two and three moults within a very much shorter period than has 

 been observed in the spring, showed that six weeks in midsummer might not improbably 

 be long enough for all the changes. Perhaps also there are but four larval moults in the 

 summer brood, as in some of the Melitreas, though there are five in the winter brood. 

 Every stage would be shortened by the hot weather of July. On 14th June, 1878, I 

 saw a pair of Cybele flying in copulation. In all instances where this has happened with 

 butterflies under my observation, and the females have been secured (and this includes 

 Arg. Atlantis and Myrina), eggs have been laid within a few hours after. Eggs laid 

 15th June would allow about two months for the several stages to imago." 



In Mr. Scudder's Butterflies of New England, on page 549, after 

 quoting in full the first of the above extracts, the author proceeds : — 



"No such interrupted series of emergences has been detected in the history of our 

 three species in New England, but if, as is probable, this is a first step towards true 

 digoneutism, it might well.be looked for in Southern New England, and should especi- 

 ally be sought for in A. Cybele^ 



Mr. Scudder proceeds to say that in the North there is a prolonged 

 but uninterrupted emergence of fresh material from the chrysalis and 

 suggests that the phenomena may be attributed to lethargy in the cater- 

 pillar, periodic and fixed in the South, casual and irregular in the North. 



The life history is given by Mr. Scudder as follows : — 

 " The insect is single brooded in New England, passing the winter in the larval 

 state. The caterpillars become full grown in June, and the earliest butterflies appear in 

 the latter part of June, sometimes as early as the i6th in the latitude of Boston, usually 

 not much before the 21 st; become common by the ist of July, when the female first 

 emerges ; continue to escape from the chrysalis until at least the middle of July, and fly 

 until the middle of September and occasionally later. The butterflies generally pair at 

 the end of July, but the eggs do not begin to assume their proper size until about the 

 middle of August, and are not laid until the last of August or first of September. Miss 

 Soule obtained eggs in Stow, Vt., on August 20, which is the earliest New England 

 date known to me." 



" The eggs hatch in about fifteen days, but the caterpillars from them go immedi- 

 ately into hibernation without eating anything more than their egg shells." 



From 1868 to 1875, inclusive, I spent the summers, from about the 

 15th July to the first week in September, on Cape Elizabeth, near Port- 

 land, Me., and I observed the phenomena of the second emergence 

 described by Mr. Edwards. When I first arrived the Argynnides were 

 flying, but in a worn and dilapidated condition, but about the ist of 

 August fresh examples appeared and I observed them in copulation with 

 some of the worn ones, but later only those of the second flight were 

 seen in coitu. 



