ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 19 



mending a course of popular scientific lectures before the 

 Academy. Mr. Turril read a supplementary paper on the same 

 subject. 



Henry Edwards read a paper on Pacific Coast Lepidoplera, 

 No. 16. 



Pacific Coast Lepidoptera.— No. 16. Notes on the Trans- 

 formations of some Species of Lepidoptera, not hitherto 

 recorded. 



BY HENEY EDWAEDS. 



• With the desire to add, little by little, to the knowledge of our species of 

 Lepidoptera, I think it of importance to present to entomologists' every 

 observation which I am enabled to make with reference to their transformations, 

 and though in some instances I am only able to give notes of the egg, in 

 others, of the early larval stage, and still in others, of the more mature con- 

 ditions, I regard these as of extreme value in assisting to perfect our knowledge 

 of the life-history of each species, and as an aid to other workers who may 

 have opportunities different from my own. As the paleontologist can, from 

 the fragmentary portions of extinct animals, sometimes obtained from regions 

 remote from each other, build up a complete description of the species under 

 his consideration, so do I hope that these incomplete studies inay aid the 

 future student of the habits and history of our yet slightly known insects, 

 and thus become the foundation upon which a better superstructure may be 

 raised. The whole field of research in this department is yet untraversed, 

 and will amply repay the investigator in this most interesting branch of 

 natural science, and as before, I entreat those into whose hands examples of 

 the early stages of any of our insects may fall, to omit no opportunity of 

 making known to myself, or others engaged in entomological pursuits, the 

 results of their observations. f 



Since the publication of my last paper on the transformations of our 

 Lepidoptera (No. 14), the following species have come under my notice: 



Family PAPILIONID^. 



Papilio Philenor. Fab. 



Chrysalis. The usual color of this stage of Philenor has been a grayish 

 stone color, mottled with violet and yellow; but from two caterpillars found 

 feeding, in June last, on Aristolochia at Saucelito, I have obtained chrysalides 

 so different in color, as almost to suggest another species. They are pale, 

 but vivid, yellowish green, of a very lively tint over the whole surface, which 

 is covered with minute blackish reticulations. The edges of the wing cases, 

 abdominal tubercles, apex of the mesonotal process and edges of the antennas 

 cases rich purplish brown. Out of the same brood of thirteen caterpillars, 

 eleven assumed the normal coloring. They all went into the chrysalis state 

 from June 28th to July 17th. 



