108 BUTTERFLIES 



quarters of an inch. It now finds some bit of shelter on 

 which it spins a bit of flat web and a silken loop to hold it 

 in place as it becomes a chrysalis. It then changes and 

 remains quiescent for ten days or more when it emerges 

 as the dainty butterfly. 



Notwithstanding its abundance and its successive 

 broods its life-history is none too completely worked out. 

 There is still opportunity for careful observations upon 

 the way in which it passes the winter in various parts of 

 its range. While in the South it apparently hibernates 

 as an adult, this fact is not certain in the more northern 

 localities. 



Notwithstanding its diminutive size this butterfly has 

 been known to swarm in such enormous numbers as to 

 seem a veritable cloud. The most notable record of this 

 has been quoted by Scudder in connection with a swarm 

 that invaded the Bermuda Islands, in 1874, on the first 

 day of October. It was described in these words: 



"Early in the morning several persons living on the 

 north side of the main island perceived, as they thought, 

 a cloud coming over from the northwest, which drew 

 nearer and nearer to the shore, on reaching which it 

 divided into two parts, one of which went eastward and the 

 other westward, gradually falling upon the land. They 

 were not long in ascertaining that what they had taken for 

 a cloud was an immense concourse of small yellow butter- 

 flies, which flitted about all the open grassy patches in a 

 lazy manner, as if fatigued after their long voyage over the 

 deep. Fishermen out near the reefs, some few miles to the 

 north of the islands very early that morning, stated that 

 numbers of these insects fell upon their boats, literally 

 covering them." 



