PAPILIONINAE : IPHICLIDES AJAX. 1275 



We will now consider tiie life-history of the species. The insect is mul- 

 tibrooded and winters as a chrysalis. The earliest variety, marccllus, 

 "appears in Kanawha valley (W. Va.), from the 15th to 20th of March, 

 by which time the peach trees are usually in hlossom. On these the fe- 

 males may certainly be found, and a little later, on the apple and in great 

 mimbers on the wild plum. The males appear a few days earlier [than 

 the females] and are to be seen by the water-side or upon the road, but 

 rarely upon flowers. The larvae feed on the papaw, and as this is one of 

 the latest of our trees to put forth its leaves, the butterllies are out at least 

 from two to three weeks before the young shoots of the food plant are 

 visible. But no sooner do these appear than the females hasten to deposit 

 their eggs." This is early in April and they continue to lay them until as 

 late as May 23d ; the eggs hatch in from seven to eight days and the 

 caterpillars are from twenty-two to twenty-nine daj's in attaining their 

 growth. 



Telamonides, which, as stated above, is only a later variety of the same 

 brood, "begins to fly some weeks after [marcellus], and both forms . . . 

 are for a time common." Telamonides evidently lays its eggs very soon, 

 for, "on dissecting the abdomen of a newly emerged female, the eggs are 

 found to be fully formed though not full-sized. I conclude that they 

 mature with great rapidity because fertile eggs are laid by apparently 

 fresh and uninjured females," and he records in another place pairing taking 

 place with females whose wings were yet moist and limp from fresh eclosion. 

 ^Ir. Edwards records eggs laid from May 11th to June 2d; these are 

 hatched much more rapidly tlian those of marcellus, namely in from four 

 to five days ; the caterpillars, too, mature more quickly, attaining their 

 growth in from fifteen to eighteen days, thus often overtaking their tardier 

 predecessors. "About the first of June [marcellus imago] disappears, 

 and before the end of the mouth telamonides also." 



Still farther south, it is evident that the apparition of the butterflies is 

 advanced ; for in Georgia, Abbot records marcellus as emerging from the 

 chrysalis March 2d, and Dr. Chapman took it in northern Florida, in the 

 latter half of February, 18fi8 and 1869 ; late in March he also records the 



his knowledge of the identity of the early and June 1st and 6th ; fifty-eight chrysalids pro- 

 late forms) on August 2 from a chiysalis of duced ajax, one marcellus and one telamon- 

 September 9 of the previous ye.ar I The other ides ; so that tlie solitary specimen of marcellus 

 exceptions occuiTed in the course of Mr. was far out of season, for Mr. Edwards cx- 

 Edwards's experiments. This indefatigable pressly says "about the first of June [marcel- 

 worker has traced the history of more than lus] ilisafpears" while the one specimen of 

 two hundred individuals from egg to butterfly, telamonides was certainly much later than 

 and of these only two did not follow the usual usual ; and in any case, marcellus should 

 course; these two belonged to a brood pro- produce neither marcellus nor telamonides the 

 duced from eggs laid l)y marcellus before the same se.ason. It must be remembered that 

 middle of April ; sixty individuals completed similar instances of untimely eclosion are by 

 their transformations the same year; all (ex- no means very uncommon among butterflies, 

 ccpting a pair of belated ajax) hatched between Some are recorded in this work. 



