LOCALITIES OF VARIOUS SPECIES. 71 



immerous specimens of which we collected in the 

 immediate vicinity ; but the flies of these, from their 

 previous exposure to the cold out of doors, did not 

 appear till a month later. It is worthy of remark, 

 that the two exotic plants are of the same natural 

 family {Co7npositce) ; yet, notwithstanding the simi- 

 larity of the common groundsel (Saiecio vulgaris) to 

 the American, not one leaf of the former was found 

 mined, thoug-h it is an abundant native plant*. 



It is no less remarkable, that the mother insects 

 of the larvae which live solitary and those which live 

 in society take care to deposit their eggs with regard 

 to the respective destinations of their progeny. In 

 our earlier studies we remember being much inte- 

 rested with Harris's description of the admirable 

 butterfly {Vanessa Atalanta)^ flitting rapidly and 

 stealthily from field to field, and depositing only a 

 single egg on a single nettle in each, as if she were 

 afraid of overstocking one place and leaving others 

 uninhabited by her descendants f. Our subsequent 

 observation of the manners of the insect itself has led 

 us to doubt the accuracy of Harris; for we think it 

 will hold as a pretty general principle, that the 

 mothers of solitary caterpillars, for the most part, 

 deposit several eggs on the same plant, often at no 

 great distance, and sometimes on the same leaf. No 

 class of caterpillars could well be considered more 

 solitary than those of the hawk-moths {Sphingid(B^ 

 Leach), yet we have found from two to three eggs of 

 that of the poplar- hawk (Smerinthus Populi) upon 

 the same leaf, and a similar number of the eggs of 

 the puss-moth, the larva of which is also solitary, on one 

 leaf + ; while of the admirable butterfly above alluded 

 to, we found, in 1825, as many as from three to six 

 on every plant in a small patch of about a dozen 



* J. R. t See Harris's Aurelian, vi. fol. Lond. 1778. 



+ See Insect Architecture, p. 192. 



