220 THE BUTTERFLIES OF NEW ENGLAND. 



base of one of the blades, turning back to feed again toward sundown. In 

 resting, the caudal horns are nearly horizontal, but are a trifle raised. 



One which was overtaken by winter, after it ceased to eat wandered 

 slowly for several weeks — though remaining motionless most of the time — 

 in the search for a suitable place to hibernate ; finally about November 7 it 

 took a position near the base of a bundle of leaf-stalks where a dead blade 

 from another cluster overhung it, spun a single thread across to unite the 

 two, and stationed itself head upward for the winter. Another took up 

 its station on the base of a blade of grass about October 20 and remained 

 here, in the living room of a house until January 26, when it aroused and 

 began regularly to eat by night, and to hide, as above described, by day. 



Pupation. The caterpillar spins a web on a blade of grass just where 

 it has been feeding or without wandering far, hangs in a very strongly 

 curved position for three days before casting the larval skin, and then hangs 

 as a chrysalis for about sixteen days in the north, eleven in the south. 



Life history. There is only one brood annually. The butterfly appears 

 in the extreme south of New England about the 20th of May ; in the 

 vicinity of Boston usually at the close of the month or the very first of 

 June ; it remains common throughout June, seldom much longer, but 

 occasional specimens may be taken far into Jidy ; and I once captured a 

 specimen in Waltham on August 3. Mr. Saunders states that in Ontario 

 it usually appears about the 10th or 12th of June, though sometimes as 

 early as the 1st. Its ordinary appearance can hardly be delayed until the 

 second week of June, but it may be that it varies greatly, according to the 

 season, for Dr. Packard writes that it appeared one year at Brunswick, 

 Me., as late as the 23d of June. In the extreme southern states it makes 

 its appearance the last week of March, and continues through April into 

 May (Chapman) ; Mr. Schwarz took it at Haulover, Fla., on March 16. 



The above account is substantially as I wrote it fifteen years ago, and 

 there would be apparently no occasion to change it now for the vicinity of 

 Boston ; but elsewhere, both north and south, fresh specimens have been 

 taken much later in the season. Mr. F. H. Sprague, in particular, writes 

 me of his experience in 1885, and he has observed similar occurrences in 

 other seasons, that in eastern Massachusetts "very few good specimens 

 were met with after the middle of June, and by July 1, they had altogether 

 disappeared with the exception of perhaps a dilapidated one here and 

 there"; while "in the hilly region of the Connecticut Valley (in central 

 Massachusetts) fresh specimens of the male were taken sparingly from 

 July 6-10," not accompanied by a single female nor by any worn speci- 

 mens, and for the next three days several more good and fair specimens of 

 both sexes but none poor. Later than this, in other years, faded specimens 

 were taken in the same region until after August 1. Captain Geddes also 

 reports taking the species in Canada in September, and Mr. Edwards says 



