1518 THE BUTTERFLIES OF NEW ENGLAND. 



• The eggs are very peculiar in heiiig heavily lobed above vertically in a 

 radiate manner, each lobe rounded and arched and corresponding to a vastly 

 thickened continuation of every alternate vertical rib, which otherwise is 

 normal. Edwards aptly compares them to a confectioner's cake-moulds, 

 and adds that their red-brown color makes them look like a speck of dust 

 on the leaf. 



The caterpillars resemble those of Thanaos, but are slendei-er.than they 

 and of a brighter color. 



The chrysalids closely resemble those of Thanaos, but differ from them 

 exactly as do the caterj)illar8. 



EXCURSUS LVIII.—THE PERILS OF THE EGG. 



He who Ijeiuls to himself a joy 

 Does the wiii,^6cl life destroy ;" 

 But he who kisses the joy as it flies 

 Lives in eternity's sunrise. 



Blake. — Opp ort unity. 



AxYBODY who has attempted to procure tlie laying of eggs out-of-doors 

 by butterflies and left them there to hatch, must have observed the mor- 

 tality among them, due to the simple voracity of entoniophagous insects. The 

 chief offenders are mites and spiders of different kinds, and ants who seem 

 as fond of animal as of the sweeter vegetable juices. I one day left a 

 Vanessa cardui entrapped on a thistle and in a brief time she laid several 

 eggs ; but when I went a second day to see if there were others, I found 

 only the bases of eggs which had been laid by her, with a single exception ; 

 this egg presented a peculiar appearance, for a pair of ants were tugging 

 at it, and had just succeeded in piercing it above so that the egg was 

 spoiled for me. I have found it therefore advisable in all cases to remove 

 eggs to the house as soon as obtained from the female, if one does not wish 

 to suffer a large percentage of loss. Others have had the same experience. 

 Mr. Edwards writes : — 



"There is a monstrous waste of eggs in interrogationis ; out of the thou- 

 sands which must have been laid by, say, thirty females hardly twenty 

 butterflies resulted. I have watched the eggs and they are carried off and 

 no trace left. I suppose by spiders. I had a lot of ajax eggs laid in a 

 keg over papaw and had left them there to hatch, though I usually cut 

 off the stem and hatch the eggs in the house. I took off the cloth one 

 evenins: to let the eggs get the night air, and in the morning there was 

 no trace of an egg on the plant. So it happened with atalanta." 



Nor are these minute objects by any means free from the attacks of para- 

 sites, which pass their entire existence within this narrow compass. Wit- 

 ness the not inconsiderable list of the excessively minute Hymenoptera of 

 the genera Trichogramma and Telenomus, all of which have been raised 



