THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



the secretion is confined to the opening on nth segment, or is also given 

 by the tubes on 12th, remains to be determined by farther observations. 



I find no mention in any author accessible to me of ants attending 

 lepidopterous larvae. Kirby & Spence (Longman, 1856), p. 336, say : 

 " Not only the Aphides yield this repast to the ants, but also the Cocci, 

 with whom they have recourse to similar manoeuvres and with equal 

 success ; only in this case the movement of the antennae over their body 

 may be compared to the thrill of the finger over the keys of a piano- 

 forte." (This describes well the movements over our larva.) " Even 

 beetles are occasionally made cows of by Formica flava, which keeps in 

 its nest Claviger faveolatus, and obtains from the bristles terminating its 

 elytra a gummy secretion which it uses for food," &c. And Mr. Belt, 

 "Naturalist in Nicaragua," p. 227, describes the attending of larvae of leaf- 

 hoppers by ants, but even this careful observer does not seem to have 

 noticed the ants with lepidopterous larvae. 



The history of pseudargiolus in Virginia is this : In the early spring 

 violucea appears, a very distinct form, and characterized by dimorphism in 

 the female, some of that sex being blue, others black. The eggs laid by 

 violacea give larvae from which comes pseudargiolus last of May, but the 

 food plant of such larvse is not yet known — possibly Cornus. The female 

 pseudargiolus lays eggs on Cimicifuga racemosa, and most of the resulting 

 butterflies over-winter, to produce perhaps violacea, but also perhaps the 

 typical pseudargiolus again (which of the two I hope to ascertain by 

 March, 1878). But a small percentage, say five, of these chrysalids give 

 butterflies at irregular intervals during the same year, at least as late as 

 September, and the earliest of these, if I may judge by what I have seen 

 in the field as well as by the results in my boxes this summer, are males, 

 the females mostly if not wholly emerging latest. These butterflies are 

 always smaller than the parents (the typical pseudargiolus), some not 

 much, however, but nearly all considerably, and these last are nothing 

 more nor less than what I named, described and figured (But. N. A., I, 

 pi. 50) as neglecta. I cannot see any distinction between them and 

 examples of neglecla from New York. Besides the difference in size there 

 is usually but not always some in the shade of upper surface between 

 these and pseudargiolus, and on the under side the marginal crescents and 

 discal spots are usually but not always more decided than in the latter. 

 The intermediate examples may be called small pseudargiolus or large 

 neglecta. There is no regular second summer brood — that is, there are 



