XYMIMIALIXAK: I'OLYCOXIA INTKUKOCATIONTS. 327 



reported are Brim.swiek (I'ackard), Xorway (Smith), Ilallowell, one 

 specimen (Miss Wadswortli), and Ijan^or, Me. (Braun); Walpole, 

 N. II. (Siuitli), and Stow, Vt., one specimen (iNHss Soule) ; in the south- 

 ern })orti()n of our disti-ict it [)revails more ahnnchmtly, although never to 

 the same extent as in the soutliern and middle states of the Union. 



Haunts and abundance. The butterfly is found in glades, gardens, 

 and hy the roadside in the vicinity of woods. It is very fond of sucking 

 the sap which flows from wounded trees, especially oaks ; and like many 

 other Nymphalidac almost always alights on the trunks with its head 

 downwards (Doubleday), So too, like the other species of Polygonia, it is 

 attracted by the juices of decaying fruits. 



More })erhaps than any other species of this genus, it is subject, at least 

 in Xew England, to considerable fluctuations in abundance from year to 

 year, last year (1(SM7) being the only one in which I remember to have 

 met with it in any considerable numbers in thirty years, and Harris speaks 

 of it, as just mentioned in a note, as occasionally destructive, which cer- 

 tainly cannot be charged upon it often in this latitude. 



Oviposition. The eggs are usually laid on the under surface of leaves, 

 occasionally on the upper, sometimes on the stem, the tender terminal 

 leaves being preferred, and either singly or in depending columns of 

 several, as many as five or six, and in one instance eight, according to 

 Edwards. Six is the largest number we have met with, and three or four 

 seem to be the most common. P]d wards says that the number of ribs 

 does not vary in any one column, so that this number, which is commonly 

 ten, but ranges from eight to eleven, is i^robablv the same in all the eojrs 

 laid by one individual. The eggs hatch in three to eleven days, according 

 to the season. 



Food plants. The caterpillars feed not only upon various Urticaceae, 

 — elm (Ulmus americana L.), hackberry (Celtis occidentalis L.), nettle 

 (Urtica), false nettle (Boehmeria cylindrica Willd.) and hop (Humulus 

 lupulus L.), — but also upon the Linden (Tilia americana L. ) and its 

 varieties known under the names of basswood, lime and white-wood; the 

 form figured by Abbot and Smith is var. pubescens according to Dr. 

 Chapman. Dr. Harris suggests that it may be only the autumn brood 

 which feeds upon hop, but Mr. Edwards finds the spring generation also 

 on that plant. Hop and elm are its favorites. Ross carelessly gives the 

 grape-vine as one of its food plants, and by an error of determination, 

 Ambrosia was once mentioned by Edwards. 



Habits of the caterpillar. According to ]\Ir. Edwards the larvae are 

 sometimes gregarious, in distinction from those of all the other species of 

 Polygonia ; and Mr. Doidjleday says he has seen hops in Asheville, N. C, 

 entirely destroyed by them, and the roof of a long veranda so closely hung 

 with the pupae that he has dragged them down with the web in masses of 



