PAPILIO III. 



Wakhii appears in the Kanawha Valley (West Va.) from the fifteenth to 

 twentieth of March, by which time the peach trees are usually in bloom. On 

 these the females may certainly be found, and a little later, on the aj^ple and in 

 great numbers on the wild plum. The males appear a few days earlier and are to 

 be seen by the water side or upon the road, but rarely upon flowers. The larvae . 

 feed on the Pawpaw (Asimina triloba, Gray), and as this is one of the latest of our 

 trees to put forth its leaves, the butterflies are out at least from two to three weeks 

 before the young shoots of the food plant are visible. But no sooner do these ap- 

 pear than the females hasten to deposit their eggs. Telamonides begins to fly some 

 weeks after Wakhii, and both forms in this valley are for a time common. About 

 the first of June, Wakhii disappears, and before the end of the month Telamonides 

 also. I have never seen either later than June save in one instance. In this, Mr. 

 Theo. L. Mead captured a newly emerged Telamonides, at Coalburgh, 12th Sept., 

 1869. Mr. Mead is an accurate observer, and during several weeks spent with me, 

 paid particular attention to this species. Every season I have brought me great 

 numbers of butterflies taken in the vicinity, and as no other case of the late 

 appearance of these two forms has come to my knowledge, it may be assumed that 

 this occurrence of Telamonides was exceptional. 



About 1st of June, Ilarcellus begins to aj^pear and shortly is out in great 

 numbers, continuing to be abundant till last of October. I have seen Marcellus in 

 but one instance before last of May, and that was 11th April, 1867, when I myself 

 captured a female on the wing, as much out of its season as the Telamonides in 

 Sej)tember. 



I became satisfied in my own mind some years ago that one of these forms was 

 the summer or fall brood and the others the s^jriug broods of the same insect, hav- 

 ing every year raised many of the larvae, either found on the leaves of the food 

 plant, or bred from eggs so found, and the results thus obtained agreeing with out- 

 side observations. But however probable it might appear, it was not possible to 

 establish the certainty till the missing link could be sujiplied and one form bred 

 from eggs actually laid by another, es^jecially when the appearance of the Ilarcel- 

 lus taken in April and the Telamonides emerged from chrysalis in April, 1868, 

 hereafter referred to, furnished strong reasons for doubt.* 



* Note. — It is true that Dr. Morris, ia 1862, had stated in his iSvnopsis, page 9, th.at Dr. Gray 

 considered Ajax and Marcellus to be varieties of the same insect, and added, " This is now the opinion 

 of all the collectors in this country. One of them declares that Ajax is the spring and Marcellus the 

 fall brood of the same species." But no reason for this opinion or proof of the assertion was given, and 

 Dr. Morris allowed me to deny the identity of the two species in his appendix, p. 351, without com- 

 ment. At best, no one seems to have more than reached an opinion founded ia some cases probably on 

 &ct8 identical with those afterwards observed by me. 



