1248 THE BUTTERFLIES OF NEW ENGLAND. 



Oviposition. iMr. AA'. H. Eihvards thus describes the action of the 

 feiiiiile wliile laying her eggs : "After fluttering from one leaf to another 

 she fixed upon a leaflet at the extremity of tiie stem, stood with legs 

 stretched straiglit beneath her and bending down the end of the abdomen 

 to the stem of the leaflet deposited an egg upon it ; she continued to de- 

 posit the eggs one after another in straight rows, with intervals between 

 the eggs and between the rows equal to the diameter of the egg, and in 

 so doing curved tlie abdomen quite around to the opposite side of the stem 

 until the latter was half encircled with eggs ; in all she laid 12 in 3 rows 

 of 4 each. I climbed by a ladder to within a foot of her but she showed 

 no apprehension ; on another stem I foimd 18 eggs ; the eggs were at- 

 tached to the stem by a suljstance of a deeper red than the egg and which 

 looked, under a glass, like wax." Mr. Edwards elsewhere says they are 

 "laid in one or two rows of from five to ten in the row, on the under side 

 of the leaves and are not close together, but separated b}' narrow spaces." 



Mr. Riley has sent me one cluster laid on the upper side of a leaf, two 

 straight rows of three each, as closely packed as possible. In another in- 

 stanc'c three eggs sent me by Mr. Edwards, laid on a Polygonum, were 

 attached to the stalk in a single row just below the base of a leaf; 

 and in a bunch found by me at Beverly in 1887, on an Aristolochia 

 in the groimds of Mr. Jackson that is attacked nearly every year, tliirtv- 

 two eggs were arranged along the upper surfiicc and sides of a tendril 

 (66 : 8) , the under surface of the tendril being bare : they formed about 

 three rather irregular rows, the middle row tolerably straight and most of 

 theeggs touching their neighliors : it is evident, however, that some of the 

 middle row were laid after some of those in the outside rows had been de- 

 posited, as the latter were occasionally covered in part by the former. 

 The eggs hatch in from seven to nine days. 



Food plants. This, caterpillar feeds mainly on Aristolochia ; in tlie 

 south it is commonly found on the Virginia snake root, A. serpentaria ; 

 in the middle and northern states more often on the Dutchman's pipe, A. 

 sipho. According to Riley it also feeds on Asarum canadense, also be- 

 longing to the Aristolochiaceae ; and Edwards found the butterfly layino- 

 eggs on a Polygonum, probably P. convolvulus, the black bind weed, 

 belonging to a neighboring family. 



Habits of the caterpillar. The young caterpillars do not devour the 

 shell of the egg more than is necessary for emergence, and on hatchino- 

 "betake themselves to the edge of the leaf and ranging themselves atrio-ht 

 angles to this, side by side, feed after the manner of large Bombycidae" 

 (Edwards) . One which I separated from its brethren and placed upon a 

 leaf apart, immediately after hatching, retired after feeding to near the 

 centre of the upper surface of the leaf, and returned to the edge to feed, 

 eating tlic loaf from the ujjpcr surface as far as tlio matted hairs of the 



