1274 THE BUTTERFLIES OF NEW ENGLAND. 



As stated, ajax appears under three different forms — marcelliis, tela- 

 monides and ajax, the polymorphism affecting botii sexes equally. Yet 

 "Whosoever you take hhn to be, he is Ajax." 



These forms are shown by Mr. Edwards to produce one another in a 

 complicated manner, but in general the imago exhibits what has been 

 termed seasonal polymorphism ; that is, a series of individuals adhering, 

 in all their variations, to several distinct types, each type appearing at a 

 different season of the year from the others : thus marcellus is the early 

 spring type, telamonides the late spring, and ajax the summer and autumn 

 type. Nearly all the butterflies which, in West Virginia, emerge from the 

 chrysalis before the middle of April are marcellus ; between that and the 

 end of May, telamonides ; after this, ajax. The first two, however, do 

 not appear properly to represent distinct broods, which is one of the most 

 extraordinary features in the history of the insect ; for telamonides, judging 

 from recorded observations, is not the direct conseasonal produce of 

 marcellus, but both are solely made up of butterflies which have wintered 

 as chrysalids, those which disclose their inmates earliest producing mar- 

 cellus, the others, telamonides ; while all buttei-flies produced from eggs of 

 the same season — and there are several successive broods — belong to ajax. 

 Thus, besides the true seasonal dimorphism which distinguishes the butter- 

 flies produced from eggs of the same season from those derived from eggs 

 of the previous season, we have a secondary seasonal dimorphism, as it 

 may well be called, separating the earlier from the later produce of winter- 

 ing chrysalids. 



Mr. Edwards has also proved by his experiments that a portion of every 

 brood of chrysalids, instead of disclosing the imago at the end of the 

 ordinary time, retain it, occasionally until the appearance of a subsequent 

 brood, but usually until the next spring. The spring brood (marcellus- 

 telamonides) is therefore by no means wholly produced from chrysalids 

 of the final brood of ajax, but in large measure from those of all the earlier 

 broods, even including the earliest marcellus ; the proportion of chrysalids 

 which continue until spring increases, as a rule, as the season advances, Mr. 

 Edwards's statements showing that of those produced from eggs laid in April, 

 more than ten per cent, pass over, those from eggs laid May 1-25 about 

 thirty-five per cent. , from that time until the end of June from fifty to sixty 

 per cent, and from those laid in July about seventy per cent. Marcellus 

 and telamonides, then, produce ajax the same season, or either marcellus 

 or telamonides in the spring ; ajax produces itself the same season, or one 

 of the others in the spring ; but neither marcellus nor telamonides is pro- 

 duced the same season by any of the varieties . * 



•The recorded exceptions to this rule tember 12th, aud an ajax April 11th; Abbot, 

 (which serve only to strengthen it) are the too, states in his MS. that he bred a butterfly 

 foUowing: a telamonides was captured Sep- of ajax ("autumnal ajax" he called it, showing 



