228 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



of any lepidopterous insect has ever known any species to live and deposit 

 eggs for two weeks — to say nothing of " a month or so ?" 



In most of the Heterocera five days is the usual period of life after the 

 £ has paired. Every collector of course knows that most species will 

 live longer if kept from their mates, which is a provision of nature to 

 prevent the extermination of species. A Phobetron pithecium accidentally 

 kept from her mate lived eight days, mating the fifth ; another mating the 

 first day from pupa deposits her eggs and dies the fourth day. 



I am no friend to the theory of colonization, though of course, I know 

 eggs and pupa are often brought to and from distant countries in the com- 

 merce of nations ; but that anything so fragile as a butterfly or moth 

 should fly hundreds of miles, and not only that, but entirely change its 

 habits on its arrival, even though that country should be nearly identical 

 with its own in climatic properties, becoming from a double or three 

 brooded species a single one, seems out of all reason. 



That a hybernating Archippus should be more or less shabby, accord- 

 ing to its hybernacula, is of course, highly probable ; and, I agree with 

 Mr. Edwards, in judging that a freshly hatched butterfly, finding a cold dry 

 place wherein to hybernate. should appear in the late spring, less faded 

 and unstained than another in a wet and exposed situation ; but that 

 any should appear after the wear and tear of a northern winter, or a flight 

 of an hundred miles with the glorious hues of an imago fresh from 

 chrysalis, is utterly beyond belief. 



This season, after an unparalleled winter, the first " western blizzard " 

 ever experienced in the State of New York, we have had swarms of hyber- 

 nated P. Atalanta; one would not suppose there were enough nettles in the 

 whole of New Windsor to afford nourishment to the hundreds which have 

 appeared during the month of May. Did they fly from the Gulf of Mexico ? 

 Qiiien sabe ? 



A curious variety of Papilio turnus was found here in New Windsor, 

 closely resembling fig. 3 in plate 5 of Mr. Edwards's Butterflies of North 

 America. She was taken in the grass July 8th, but could not fly as her 

 wings were crippled on one side. She is darker than Mr. Edwards's speci- 

 men, looking like a Glaucus, but with a powdering of yellow scales cover- 

 ing the inner surface of all the wings. Could the blizzard of the 12th of 

 March have produced this variety ? 



October 29th, 1888. 



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