Cl)c Canal)ian ^ntomolopt. 



VOL. XIV. LONDON, ONT., FEBRUARY, 1882. No. 2 



NOTES ON CERTAIN BUTTERFLIES, THEIR HABITS, ETC. 



A^o. I. 



BY W. H. EDWARDS, COALBURGH, W. VA. 



I. Papilio Philenor, 



On 2 1 St May, 1881, I saw a female Philenor fluttering about a low plant 

 in the edge of the woods near my house. Apparently it was a vine just out 

 of the ground — some four or five inches high — and three eggs were laid on 

 the stem. I sent the plant to Mr. Scudder for determination at the 

 Botanical Gardens, but he reported that there was not enough of it for that 

 purpose. 



On I St Aug., I saw a female coursing over the hill side, alighting on 

 various species of plants for an instant ; sometimes on clover heads or 

 other flowers, then flying again in short circuits, touching a leaf here and 

 there. Perhaps it was ten minutes before she lingered on one plant 

 longer than usual, though then but for three or four seconds, and I found on 

 examination three eggs laid on the stem just below the terminal leaf. The 

 plant was of the same species I had noticed in May, and I dug it up and 

 planted it in the garden. When at Cincinnati, at the meeting of the 

 A. A. A. S., I learned from Dr. H. S. Jewett that this must be Aristolochia 

 serpentaria, a common plant about Dayton, O., and later I received from 

 him several dried examples of it. I had no idea that this was what is 

 spoken of by Dr. Boisduval, Lep. Am., as the food plant of Philenor, as 

 it is wholly unlike other species of Aristolochia with which I am familiar, 

 they being all vines, and this a low herb. Gray describes it as growing 

 in rich woods. Conn, to Ind., and southward, the stems 8 to 15 inches 

 high, leaves ovate or oblong from a heart-shaped base. The Virginia- 

 Snake-root of medicine. 



2. Papilio Machaon. 



During the winter 1880-81 Mr. Mead sent me a large number of chry- 

 salids of Machaon, imported by him from Germany, requesting me to turn 



