THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 17 



LARV/E OF PAPILIO PHILENOR BECOMING LARVO- 



PHAGOUS. 



BY RICHARD E. KUNZF., M. D., NTW YORK. 



" I perish by my art ; dig mine own grave ; 



I spin the thread of life ; my death I weave." 



Truly wonderful is the adaptability of some individuals when placed 

 under circumstances tending to diminish the reproduction of their race. 

 Desirous of raising larvae of Papilio philenor, I planted two years ago five 

 vines of Dutchman's Pipe ( Aristolochia sipho) in my back yard, which 

 in the summer of the present year (1892) covered a wall and fence 16x7 

 feet with luxuriant foliage. 



July 2nd a friend brought me, from Staten Island, N. Y., from 125 to 

 150 larvae of Philenor. The majority had passed their first, and a few 

 their second moult. All were transferred to the leaves of the Dutchman's 

 Pipe vine in my garden plot. By the ninth of July nearly all the leaves 

 of my Pipe vines were devoured, before less than half of the leaves were 

 full grown. I then removed fifty of the largest to a five-gallon flower pot, 

 covering the bottom with a layer of loam, and filling up this breeding 

 cage with as many leaves of Aristolochia sipho as it would hold. The pot 

 and loam were first well sprinkled with water to furnish moisture for 

 stems of Aristolochia vines, and the top covered with thick manilla paper to 

 prevent evaporation, inasmuch as the porosity of the cage answered every 

 such purpose. Two days later the leaves of breeding cage were all 

 devoured, and those on my vines in the garden nearly so. I divided what 

 remained of the latter, and gave an equal share to larva? in the cage. 

 Exactly foriy-eight hours afterward the Pipe vines of the garden were 

 entirely defoliated, and the larvae contained in the flower pot nearly all 

 transforming into chrysalids. 



Two days previously I requested my friend, Mr. Ehrenberg, who 

 furnished the larvae, to procure me a supply of Aristolochia leaves from 

 Staten Island, where he officiated as landscape architect at a well-known 

 villa, else most of our larvae would perish. In the meantime the owner of 

 the villa noticed the foliage of his Aristolochia trellis disappearing rapidly, 

 caused by the remaining larva? which my friend had failed to take off 

 lor me. His, (the owner's) instructions to the resident gardener to keep these 

 larvae well picked off had not been observed, he thought, while the land- 

 scape architect tried to raise a few more chrysalids on the trellis facing the 



