NYMPIIALINAE: PIIYCIODES TIIAROS. 639 



jind fresh feinalcs may always be taken after the middle of June ; it 

 remains upon the wing often until the new brood makes its appearance, 

 though in scanty numbers, and has sometimes (piite disappeared by the 

 end of the first week in July. The second brood is almost equally de- 

 liberate in its progressive advent. The males and females seem to appear 

 at the same time, the earliest from July 12 to 18 ; both sexes continue to 

 emerge without interruption from this time until the end of August, so that 

 some observers have supposed there nnist be here a third brood ; there is, 

 however, no break whatever in the appearance of fresh females, and the 

 unusual length of time during which they continue to emerge from the 

 chrysalis seems to be due, Jirst, to the individual difference of habit in 

 hibernating caterpillars, spreading the first brood over an unusual period ; 

 second, to the sluggish habit of the insect ; and third, possibly, to leth- 

 argy in mid-summer caterpillars, though this has not been observed in the 

 least degree in the many broods raised in the south by Mr. Edwards. The 

 butterfly usually disappears by the middle of September but I have taken 

 specimens as late as October 13. The caterpillars stop eating and go into 

 hibernation early in October. 



In northern New England, as in Maine and the northern half, at least, 

 of New Hampshire and Vermont, the periods are somewhat later, the first 

 brood appearing in scanty numbers in the first week of June and rarely 

 being common before the 10th, sometimes not until the middle of June. 

 In the Catskills Mr. Edwards only found a few of the first brood out by 

 June 18. Gosse reports it as appearing June 20 out year just over the 

 Canadian border. The second brood also disappears earlier, none being 

 seen by me one summer spent at Plymouth, New Hampshire, after the 

 20th of August. 



The comparatively few notes I have from southern New England do not 

 indicate, even as far as Nantucket, any noticeable difference from the 

 seasons about Boston. But farther south there is undoubtedly, by Mr. 

 Edwards's observations and the few otiiers known, an intermediate brood. 

 Mr. Edwards thinks there are four broods in West Virginia, but from the 

 data given I do not think his reasons valid, considering the sluggish nature 

 of the insect and its habits with us. Nor, from what I have observed of 

 the behavior of the female and the condition of the ovaries in specimens 

 dissected, do I think that the eggs are always laid soon after eclosion, but 

 rather, that there is considerable difference in this respect in individuals. 

 But however this may be, the earliest appearance of the imago in West 

 Virginia is, according to Edwards, only the 18th of May. The butterfly 

 was obtained in South Carolina by Mr. Atkinson, April 23, and Abbot, 

 who seems to record only the first appearance of insects (\vhen not bred), 

 took it in Georgia on March 5. Boll found it as early as February in Texas 

 and, according to Edwards, thinks there are five broods there, where it 



