PA>rpiiii,TDr; f'AT.ponEs ettilius. 1755 



twenty-four hours" (Psyche, iii:323). She adds tliat -'in a few Iiours" 

 after hatching, the first moult is passed ; hut Wittfeld says not for three 

 days. 



At times when the hirva is umlislui-beil, tliere seems to be an almost total suspension 

 of motion in the spiracles antl in all the parts aftected by them. With the entrance of 

 air into the system of spiracles there is a regular pulsatins; movement in the dorsal 

 vessel, and in the small four-chambered bodies in the ninth segment [ovaries]. The 

 entrance of air into the posterior pair of spiracles seems to j;ive the initial impulse 

 which travels so rapidly along the series and its ramillcations that almost immediately 

 the head of the insect begins to move from side to side as if affected by the same in- 

 fluences which affected the other parts. This occurs when the leafy covering of the 

 larva is cut open and light and air admitterl. 



The first conscious effort of the larva when its sheath [nest] is opened is directed 

 toward the elaboration of silk fluid with which to enclose itself once more within its 

 case. With this purpose it eats rapidly and the silk fluid is seen at the same time ac- 

 cumulating in and near the thoracic segments. The larva uses its short, black, front 

 pair of feet to unite the threads which it spins back and forth, forming a cord of fifty 

 to seventy-flve threads, as m.ay suit its purposes. (King, Psyche, iii : 323-324.) 



Mr. Charles R. Dodge remarks of some caterpillars received by him in 

 Washington, placed in a breeding cage and supplied with tender leaves of 

 Canna, that they devoured these "with avidity, having first curled the leaf 

 just enough to form a convenient hiding place," although, he adds, "they 

 do not confine themselves exclusively to it, for more than once they were 

 observed stretched out at full length on the foliage, or on one of the sides 

 of the box." 



Pupation and cocoon. Tlie same observer states (Rural Carolinian, 

 iii : 593) tliat "when about to change to pupae . . . they fold the sides of the 

 leaf closer together, fastening it with silken threads in the same manner as 

 many of the Tortricidae, and cover its entire inner surface with a web of 

 white silk, so fine that it resembles a white powder. Two slight threads 

 or loops, one across the thorax and another at the end of the body to which 

 the tail is fastened, serve to keep the pupa in place." 



]Mr. Dodge was good enough to send me some of these cocoons which 

 I find made, as stated by him and by H. Edwards, of a rolled up blade of 

 Canna, so that the chrysalis lies lengthwise with the leaf. Burmeister, on 

 the other hand, states that the chrysalis is enclosed in small fragments of 

 Canna leaf rolled into the form of a cylinder, carpeted on the interior 

 with dense tissue and held in place by two transverse bands placed one in 

 the middle of the body, the other at the hinder extremity ; but he does 

 not state where or in what way this cocoon is held in place. I observed 

 that the caterpillar had carpeted the whole interior of the rolled up leaf with 

 strands of a cottony white silk, the whole carpet equal, uniform, and so thin 

 as in no way to conceal the veins of the blade ; a little in advance of the middle 

 it had formed a loop, but whether this were a simple loop or constructed in the 

 ordinary Y form of the Hesperidae, I could not determine because in the 



