THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. '219 



patch at base, one on middle of disk and six elongated spots in row within 

 the margin. Duration of this stage 17 days. 



I have received eggs of Idalia in different seasons from Mr. G. M. 

 Dodge, Nebraska, laid from middle to last of September, of females con- 

 fined in bags over plants of violet. The larva? hatched in from 23 to 25 

 days, and after eating the egg shells, went at once into lethargy, most of 

 them taking refuge at the base of the leaf stalks on the violet on which I 

 placed them. Some fixed themselves on the under side of the leaves. 

 Their behavior is similar in all respects to that of Diana, Cybcle, etc., 

 passing five moults, and in the northern area of the species the butterflies 

 emerge from chrysalis in July. At Martha's Vineyard I found them 

 emerging 25th July and subsequent days. In the neighborhood of Phila- 

 delphia, I have been told by Mr. T. R. Peale that Idalia is double- 

 brooded, there being one generation about 1st July, another about 1st 

 September. He had found several caterpillars in New Jersey in the early 

 part of June, one of which suspended the day after it was taken, and tliree 

 days later made chrysalis. At the north there is but a single brood. Mr. 

 Scudder has informed me that at Nantucket he observed a female Idalia 

 laying eggs on Sericocarpus conyzoides, a species of white Aster, and the 

 same would happen at Martha's Vineyard. But the larvae eat violet 

 readily in confinement. 



Idalia is common in many localities, but rare in others, in the belt 

 which it inhabits, and this belt extends from Massachusetts westward to 

 Nebraska. I have never seen the species in West Virginia, but not unlikely 

 it is found in Virginia and Maryland along the coast. It seems very 

 subject to suffusion, and many examples are to be found in different col- 

 lections in this country. One of the most striking of these was named 

 Ashtaroth by Mr. Fisher, who took it, and it was figured in the Proc. Acad. 

 Nat. Sci. Phil., 1852. I saw this beautiful example afterwards in the 

 collection of Mr. Reakirt, borrowed from the Academy's collection, 

 to which it has not yet been returned. 



Donations to the Collection of the Ent. Soc. of Ont. — We 

 beg to acknowledge with many thanks the following donations to the col- 

 lection of our Society : From J. A. Moffat, of Hamilton, Ont., one pair 

 of Arzama diffusa, and from G. H. French, Carbondale, Illinois, one 

 specimen of Arctia rectilinea. 



