122 THE CAXADIAX EXTOMOLOGIST. 



As the weather became cool the plants gradually lost their leaves by 

 drying up ; mould began to attack the decaying leaves, and I was 

 compelled to transfer the caterpillars to fresh plants, which at this season 

 I had much trouble in providing. In fact I had to raise a number of 

 plants from off-shoots in the house, to be ready for any emergency. The 

 transfer was effected by using a pin bent at the point. The larvae would 

 curl up when touched, and were easily hooked and so moved. When 

 placed on the new plants they would soon straighten out, and change 

 position sufficiently to make themselves comfortable. But as the process 

 had to be repeated several times as the winter progressed, a great many 

 of the larvae were lost. I placed the pots in a small greenhouse about 

 the I St of January, hoping tD see the caterpillars revive and commence 

 feeding, and had the satisfaction soon after of seeing this desired result 

 take place. On the 9th of January I noticed some of the cybele were 

 active and had been feeding ; on the 21st, aphrodite ?ci\6. d'lana. They 

 very soon began to increase in size perceptibly, and were active in running 

 about the leaves and in wandering off the flower pots. I should have 

 lost these lively ones had I not confined them to the plants by glass lamp 

 chimneys and glass globes. But in these the air was no doubt too con- 

 fined for an Argynnis caterpillar (though a Grapta would have thrived,) 

 for many died ; and I came near losing them all in a way that I had not 

 provided for, the gardener having taken occasion one day, when I was 

 absent from home, to smoke the entire house with tobacco, forgetting to 

 remove my pots. 



From this catastrophe emerged about a score of cybele, half a dozen 

 aphrodite, and a few of diaiia. These larvae all throughout this period 

 grew very slowly, no doubt owing to the cooling down of the house at 

 nights, so that it was the 27th of January before I was able to see that any 

 had passed the first moult. The first to change was cybele, which now 

 appeared in a coat of smoky brown, covered with long fleshy spines, from 

 which sprung many short black bristles. These spines were of the general 

 appearance shown in the several successive moults. In all there were 

 five moults to each of these species, and until the fourth they maintained 

 their close resemblance to one another, so that had one from either lot 

 escaped to another, I could not have separated them. They were 

 cylindrical, thick, furnished with six rows of stout black spines, from the 

 ends and sides of which sprung stiff bristles. The color of the body was 

 silky brown or black, and at bases of part of the spines were yellow or 

 fulvous spots. The heads were bilobed, brown or black, much tubercled. 



