THE SWALLOWTAILS 75 



shrubs. These eggs soon hatch into caterpillars that feed 

 upon the leaves and make for themselves resting places by 

 spinning a web of silk transversely across the surface of the 

 leaf. They remain upon these silken webs when not feed- 

 ing and in later life are likely to cause the leaf on which the 

 web is made to curl into a partial tube. When fully de- 

 veloped they change to chrysalids which give forth the 

 summer brood of butterflies in July and August. These in 

 turn lay eggs for the caterpillars which change to chrysalids 

 in autumn and remain in that condition until the following 

 spring. 



The Short-tailed Papilio 



Papilio brevicauda 



Were one enough of a magician to make one butterfly 

 over into another it would be comparatively easy to take a 

 Black Swallowtail and transform it into this species. One 

 would only need to trim off the long tails so that they 

 project very slightly from the angles of the hind wings and 

 to change the yellow spots to orange. He would thus 

 accompHsh what Nature through the long ages seems to 

 have accomplished in a limited northern area in New- 

 foundland and around the Gulf of St. Lawrence, for the 

 Short-tailed Papilio is confined chiefly to this region, where 

 it lives a life very similar to that of the Black Swallowtail. 

 The caterpillar feeds upon the leaves of various members 

 of the parsley family and is said to have learned to warm 

 itseK during the middle of the day by resting upon stones 

 and gravel which have absorbed the sun's heat rays. 

 Presumably there is but one brood a year and the insect 

 hibernates as a chrysalis. 



