136 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



NOTES ON INCISALIA AUGUSTUS. 



JOHN H. AND H. COOK, ALBANY, N. Y. 



On the 6th of June, 1903, we found a Thecla caterpillar unknown to 

 us feeding openly upon the berries of Vaccinium corymbosiiin. Its 

 general colour was bright yellowish-green, which served to render it 

 comparatively inconspicuous while feeding in the midst of a cluster of the 

 unripe fruit. A faint, darker, dorsal stripe and a very minute coral-red 

 spot in the middle of each segment, just above the lateral fold, were the 

 only markings. The head was of a uniform light brown, and the body 

 was clothed with short pile. Length, 12 mm. 



This larva fed voraciously, biting a hole in the side of each berry 

 attacked and eating only the interior. One afternoon, having exhausted 

 the immediate supply of fruit, it was observed to crawl to a leaf, upon 

 which it fed readily enough until a fresh supply of the berries was 

 introduced into the breeding cage. 



On the 1 2th of June the caterpillar ceased eating, and the next 

 morning was found fastened to the floor of the cage by a silken girth. 



At 10 p. m., June 15th, it changed to a chrysalis. To the naked eye 

 this was a pitchy-brown, with the sutures between the abdominal segments 

 red. Under a microscope the surface was seen to be covered with a 

 raised reticulation and sparsely clothed with short hairs, while the colour 

 was dull reddish-brown, profusely sprinkled with pitchy-brown spots and 

 irregular blotches less numerous, and further apart on the wing-cases than 

 elsewhere. 



On Feb. 4th, 1904, this chrysalis produced a ^ Incisalia Augustus. 



The caterpillars of .(4 ?/^/^.f//(fi- hitherto described have been carmine- 

 red or pink (see Scudder's Butterflies of the Eastern U. S. and Canada, 

 and Entomological News, Vol. XV., p. 107), and it is to be noted that 

 these larvae have all been found in the Sierra Nevada range. The larva 

 here described was found about two miles west of Albany, N. Y., and at 

 no stage of its existence while in our possession did it show any trace of 

 colour other than that which marked it at first. I.s the discrepancy to be 

 explained on the ground of variation among the larvr^ — geographical or 

 otherwise — or is it possible that the eastern and western forms are 

 specifically distinct ? 



[ Thecla iroides, which is thought by some to be a western representa- 

 tive species of Augustus, has been reared from larvae found feeding on 

 young apples in June, 1897, near Victoria, on Vancouver Island, by Mr 

 Carew Gibson, but no description was taken of the larvae. — Ed. C. E.] 



