124 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



Diana fixed on the 1 7th, and became a chrysalis on the 19th, the interval' 

 being about fifty-four hours. This yielded a butterfly on the 9th of June,, 

 after twenty to twenty-one days. The chrysalids of the three bore a 

 strong likeness to each other, being all of the same general shape, and I 

 _may say in brief that they would be tolerably represented by the figure 

 of the chrysalis of A. agiaia, in Humphrey's British Butterflies, although 

 much larger than tliat figure. The length of cybcic and dia?ia was rather 

 over one inch ; aphrodite was as long, but more slender than the others,, 

 and it, as well as diana, was prettily streaked and variegated in brown and 

 red ; cybeic was plain brown, and in one case yellow brown, with little 

 ornamentation. By Miss Peart's assistance I was able to obtain a com- 

 plete series of drawings from Qgg to chrysalis of each species, and of the 

 several moults of each, and I propose to introduce these figures in course 

 of Vol. 2, Butterflies of N. A. 



Cybele was flying this year at Coalburgh, on the ist of June, and 

 these early examples must have come from larvae that began to feed after 

 hybernation in March, as the food plant then would first appear above 

 ground, so that the larval period after hybernation, when in the natural- 

 state, would be two months shorter than in the cases related above. 



With regard to the food plant, I used every species of wild violet 

 accessible from the woods, and during the winter cultivated species, and 

 discovered no preference for one more than another. The wild violets 

 \vere in flower part of the time, and the flowers were eaten by the cater- 

 pillars with avidity. The contrast between the habits of these larvae and 

 those of other genera not far separated from them, according to the 

 received arrangement, is something remarkable — as Grapfa, for instance. 

 One is in the preparatory stages nine months in the year, is impatient of 

 confinement, extremely tender and raised only by the greatest care ; the 

 other is hardy, indifi"erent to confinement, and completes its cycle in about 

 thirty days, from the laying of the egg to the appearance of the butterfly ;, 

 one is single brooded, the other many brooded, at Coalburgh there being. 

 three or four. The number is probably dependant in any latitude upon 

 the length of the season. 



There are one or two points in the life history of the larger 

 Argynnides that are not yet clear. With us, cybek $ is on the wing from 

 the 25th of May to the loth of June, as I have noticed for several 

 successive years. Probably ap/irodite nearly as soon, and diana first 

 appears about the 20th of June. Shortly after the ist of June the $ of 



