302 THE BUTTERFLIES OF NEW ENGLAND. 



nio-ht," Gosse), and then tho butterflies appear on the wing. In the White 

 Mountains the first brood of butterflies usually appears from the sixteenth 

 to the twentieth of June* and becomes abundant in four or five days ; 

 sometimes its appearance is considerably delayed, and the numbers increase 

 by the advent of fresh s[)ecimens for about three weeks ; the latest emer- 

 o-ence of which I have exact date is Julv 18 ; by the middle of July the 

 numbers perceptibly diminish, but it remains on the wing until early in 

 Auo-ust and a few dilapidated specimens, mostly males, may be found even 

 to the middle of that month, possibly a few days later. After the first 

 days of July, however, almost no perfect specimens can be found, for the 

 wino-s of fresh specimens become torn and ragged in a very few days, 

 althouo-h their colors may be undimmed. There is no evidence that the 

 butterfly appears any earlier in the more southern localities where it is 

 found than in the White Mountains. Indeed we have no record of its 

 capture in Massachusetts previous to the very end of June, but that it is 

 indio-enous and has not flown there from the north is shown at once by its 

 commonly larger size. Edwards states that it appears in the Catskills 

 "about the end of June." I have found it in such plenty in the Greylock 

 Hopper on the last of June that it nnist have been out for at least a week, 

 and I have no doubt that its actual appearance in a given year is at least 

 as early in the south as in the north, though these statistics look strangely 

 the other way. 



How early preparations are made for another brood my own observations 

 do not show. Edwards states that the eggs are laid in the Catskills the last 

 of July and early in August. He does not definitely state that they are 

 not laid earlier but one would infer it. My failure to keep exact note of 

 the time I have found the caterpillar does not enable me to verify or deny 

 this as the case in the White Mountains, but from my mere recollection of 

 the case I am strongly inclined to believe that the butterfly begins to lay 

 eggs in the early part or at least the middle of July, and that eggs are 

 laid from this time until the end of the month, very rarely in August, per- 

 haps never after its first week. The eggs hatch in about a week, and the 

 caterpillar may therefore be found in its first stage between mid July and 

 mid August. As the caterpillar is at first a slow feeder and a slow grower, 

 those which are latest may sometimes be cut ofl" by early and severe frosts ; 

 others, and probably the mass of them, reach their second or third stage before 

 the approach of winter : in the AVhite jNIountains they begin to make their 

 hibernacula by the middle of August, and can rarely if ever be found feed- 

 ing, except for such preparation, after the 25th of that month. Others 

 again, the earliest out, may in a fiivorable season, (ind in comiderahle 

 ^,amheri<,—^\\^ it is here that Mr. Edwards does not agree with me — 



* Specimens raised in West Virginia from auUunn gave tlie butterfly at tbe end of tlie 

 caterpillars transported there tlie previous following April. 



