LIMENITIS II. 



Wittfeld has taken it as early as 2-3tli March ; also from 11th to 17th May, from 

 5th to 30th June, on 8th July, and at several dates during the fall. He ob- 

 served a female ovipositing in the early part of November, 1882. In October 

 preceding, he had picked several eggs off willow, and from these, between lltli 

 and 20th November, obtained eight hybernacula, constructed after second moult, 

 wdiile four of the caterpillars went on to chrysalis. On December lltli, a butter- 

 fly emerged, another 19th, and two others later in the month. On 18th January, 

 1883, one of these hybernating larvae came from its case, and passed a moult on 

 the 19th. Its period of hybernation, therefore, was about sixty days. The winter 

 in that region is brief and mild, and probably the late butterflies live through it, as 

 Dr. Wittfeld has taken young caterpillars of Eros, not yet at their second stage, 

 in January. These must have come from eggs laid in that month. Limenitis Ur- 

 sula larva3 bred by Mr. Uhlrich, of Tiffin, Ohio, discovered a habit similar to 

 this ; some late larvte making cases, while part went on to chrysalis and butter- 

 fly. But, in Ohio, these late butterflies certainly would not survive the winter. 

 On the other hand, I have never known late larvae of Dislppus to go on to 

 chrysalis. Dr. Wittfeld is of the opinion that there are at least four broods of 

 Eros larvie during the year ; and I can well believe this to be so, as Dlsippus has 

 three annual broods here, at Coalburgh, and that between June and November. 



In three instances, eggs obtained by confining the females in bags over willow 

 were sent me by mail ; the first arriving in 1880, 20th i\\\y. They were nine 

 days on the road, in tin box, but at six days, the box was opened at Macon, 

 Georgia, by Prof. Jno. E. Willet, and fresh leaves supplied. The larva3 liad 

 emerged from the eggs before Professor Willet examined them, and when they 

 reached me, the largest had passed second moult. In 1881, 24:th June, I received 

 several larvce from Dr. Wittfeld, this time by way of Cambridge, Mass., where 

 Mr. Scudder had had consideration for them and fed them. Some of these were 

 just past first moult, others in stage following, — ten in all. Finally, on 4th Au- 

 gust, 1881, four larvae came direct to me, in five days from Indian River, and of 

 these, two were lately out of egg. So that I have been able to examine every 

 larval stage, and Mrs. Peart has made drawings of all. 



In habits these larvte are precisely like both Artheniis and Dislppus, as related 

 in this Volume (under Arthemls). They make at once, after leaving the egg, 

 perches of the midribs of the leaves they feed on (Fig. h), lengthen and stiffen 

 the perches by binding on with silk morsels of chewed leaf, so that their slender 

 resting-places do not curl up, oi- bend ; on these they live, except when they go 

 to the near edges of the leaves to feed ; they make little packets of bits of leaf, 

 which are held together, and fixed to the perch near its base by silk, and push 

 a^d drag these packets back as the substance of the leaf is eaten. (The object 



