742 THE BUTTERFLIES OF NEW ENGLAND. 



to be laid througliout this entire month without any interruption and, with 

 less frequency, throughout a considerable part, sometimes the whole of 

 August. 



As regards the later history of this butterfly in the north, we are still 

 somewhat in doubt. ]Mr. Edwards urges with great pertinacity that the 

 behavior of the butterfly in the north is altogether parallel to its behavior 

 in the south, but this would hardly seem as yet to be settled ; at any rate 

 the appearance of the latest fresh butterflies of the season may easily be 

 accounted for on the supposition that they were produced from eggs laid 

 by the older females of the first brood of colonists. For the observer Avill 

 notice that eggs are laid l)y butterflies both in a fairly fresh condition and 

 also by tliose which have been upon the wing a long time, and the closest 

 observations I have been able to give through many summers, both of 

 butterflies seen in the act of depositing their eggs and of the contents of 

 the ovaries of others, lead me strongly to the conviction that this butterfly 

 requires more than a brief time for oviposition, the eggs maturing by 

 degrees and not being fully laid until the butterfly has been upon the wing 

 at least an entire month. The examination of butterflies fresh from the chry- 

 salis shows that the eggs are never entirely mature at this time, while on 

 the other hand these butterflies retain their freshness of appearance for a 

 longer time than usual after they have come from the chrysalis. That 

 there is easily time for a second brood of butterflies from the eggs laid by 

 the progeny of the first colonists (basing our judgment upon the facts as 

 given us by Mr. Edwards in the south) there can be little doubt, but the 

 proof of such a second brood has yet to be given. While, therefore, I am 

 compelled by the facts that have been advanced since my first account of 

 this species was published (1875) to modify my statement in one respect, I 

 am still inclined to think it in the main correct, viz. that this butterfly is 

 normally single brooded throughout the larger part of New England, but 

 that it requires an annual visitation of colonists from the south to 

 exist at all, the hibernating butterflies perishing annually, almost to an 

 individual. 



Mr. Edwards entertains a diflPerent opinion regarding its life history in 

 New England, and does not believe that the butterflies which have hiber- 

 nated perish to any such extent as I have presumed ; and, because single 

 instances of hibernating butterflies have been found in Massachusetts, he 

 considers that " this settles the matter." But he fails to take note of the 

 fact that Amherst, the only place in which these hibernating butterflies 

 have yet been found in so northern a latitude as Massachusetts, is in the 

 Connecticut valley, where the isotherms trend northward, and which is but 

 a comparatively short distance north of those regions in southern Con- 

 necticut, in the valley of the same river, where it is not improbable that 

 hibernating butterflies may be found in all favorable years ; nor is he, per- 



