1456 THE BUTTERFLIES OF NEW ENGLAND. 



Vauess<a, with certain slight variatious. In early life, V. cardui tries to 

 make the stiff and crenulate edges of tiiistle leaves meet together, but with 

 indifferent success, and so fills in the interstices with an exceedingly thin web, 

 in no way concealing it from sight. In after life it forms an oval nest of 

 the size of a pigeon's egg, by fastening adjoining leaves together very 

 slightjy, and filling all the interstices with a similar, fiimsy web, upon 

 which it fastens, or into which it weaves, bits of eaten leaf or parts of the 

 inflorescence of the plant, still imperfectly concealing it from sight ; and 

 sometimes it hangs itself up for chrysalis within the same narrow, and by 

 this time very filthy apartment. V. huntera makes a similar but rounder 

 nest on the everlasting, and conceals itself very effectually by completely 

 covering the more compact, but still very slight web, with the inflores- 

 cence of the plant. 



Another class of nests is that made by some of our Melitaeidi (Cincli- 

 dia and Euphydryas) which, living in company, cover at first a few leaves, 

 then the whole head of the plant, and eventually, sometimes, the whole 

 plant in a tolerably firm web, within which the company feed, until the 

 whole becomes a nasty mess of half eaten and drying leaves, and all sorts 

 of frass, including their own excrement and cast-off pellicles, everywhere 

 tangled with web. Within such a nest they hibernate, but not until they 

 have strengthened it witli denser web and drawn the leaves of the head 

 more tightly, so that it becomes a mere bunch which one may cover with 

 his liand, and which contracts the more, apparently, as winter approaches. 

 In tlie spring the}- evidently have had enough of this sort of communal 

 life, and live thereafter in the open air. 



But perhaps the most interesting nest of all is that made by the cater- 

 pillar of the viceroy. This caterpillar hibernates when partly grown, and 

 provides for the occasion a winter residence, which is occupied only during 

 the cold season. For this purpose it eats the sides of a willow-leaf nearly 

 to the midrib, for about one-third the distance from the tip, ordinarily 

 selecting for the purpose a leaf near the end of a twig ; the opposite edges 

 of the rest of this leaf it brings together, and not only fastens them firmly 

 with silk, but covers this nest outside and inside with a carpet of light- 

 brown glossy silk, so that the leaf is nearly hidden ; nor is this all ; it 

 travels back and forth on the leaf-stalk and around the twig, spinning its 

 silk as it goes, until the leaf is firmly attached to tlie stalk, and in spite of 

 frost and wind will easily hang until spring. Following the projecting 

 midrib, the caterpillar creeps into this dark ceil, head foremost, and closes 

 the opening with its hinder segments, all abristle with spines and warts. 

 The other species of the same genus, the red-spotted and the banded 

 purple, have the same habits; the latter feeds on birches, and if we 

 examine these trees in early spring, when all sorts of ichneumon flies are 

 just beginning to wander about in search of prey, we can hardly fail to be 



