NYMPHALINAE: THE GENUS BASILARCHIA. 259 



The butterfly appears, therefore, to be at the same time both single and 

 double brooded. Dr. Breyer's account of Limenitis sibylla is as follows 

 (Ann. Soc. ent. Belg., v : 62-()3) : — 



The egg- is laid near the tip of honeysuckle [Loniccra] leaves; two arc rarely placed 

 on one and the same leaf, and the leaves of small plants are preferred by the female. 

 The little caterpillar makes its first attack on the leaf on one side of the tip, and eats very 

 moderately, so that the leaf on which it was born answers all its needs until autumn, by 

 which time it is reduced to two small flaps next the pedicel. To hibernate, the cater- 

 pillar takes up its station on this pedicel, and pulls the two lobes of the leaf over itself 

 to form a small tul)e. The pedicels which serve the purpose of this shelter do not fall 

 during the wmter, and collecting them in the spring is the quickest way of obtaining 

 the caterpillar. The latter is of a dirty yellow color, much contracted, and armed with 

 prickly prominences. In early spring it (luits its shelter, eats something, changes its 

 skin, assuming the livery in which it is well known, ])ecomes voracious, grows rapidly 

 and conceals itself closely on the plant. 



According to Meyer Diir, from t\vo to four caterpillars of this species 

 are usually found on a plant, and the butterfly flies in July. Boisduval 

 states that there is sometimes a second brood in September. 



Of another species of Limenitis, L. Camilla, Boisduval says that the 

 egg, which he compares to a chestnut burr, is laid singly on the upper 

 surface of leaves, and that such caterpillars as hatcli in September, pass 

 the winter without moulting, under a little web spun at the bifurcation of a 

 twig. 



According to Dorfmeister (Verhandl. zool.-bot. ver. Wien, iv : 483- 

 486), the food of Najas populi, a European insect the most nearly allied 

 to ours, is the aspen, Populus tremula. The habits of the young larva 

 are described as precisely similar to those of Nymphalis, except that the 

 midrib of the leaf is carefully covered with silk, a precaution which such a 

 mode of life would appear to render indispensable, and which is found in 

 Basilarchia. The moment a meal is finished, or the caterpillar is dis- 

 turbed, it travels back over its siken bridge, spinning as its goes, and takes 

 up its position at the tip. It invariably remains upon the leaf where it 

 was born until after the first or second moult. It constructs the same 

 packet of rifFrafF as Basilarchia. The species of this genus are all single 

 brooded and hibernate as early as the seventh of August, after the second 

 or third moult, constructing a hilicrnaculum somewhat similar to that made 

 by the caterpillars of Basilarchia, of a bit of leaf rolled into a cylinder 

 and fastened by its longer axis flat upon a twig. Specimens observed 

 by Dorfmeister continued to eat for a week or two after they had taken up 

 their new^ residence, returning to it after every meal. One specimen was 

 still in winter quarters on the seventeenth of May, but was found in the 

 pupal state on the fifth of June, and disclosed the butterfly on the 

 seventeenth. It would be interesting to learn if this is the kind of liiber- 

 naculum made by our Californian Xajas. 



