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flies doomed to an untimely end. Their sisters of the aestival 

 series are busily laying eggs to perpetuate the race (for the 

 phenomenon of midsummer is now repeated inversely, one 

 series ovipositing, the other emerging from the chrysalis), but to 

 them is this boon denied ; the cold autumnal blasts sweep them 

 away before the eggs are half developed in their ovaries. It is 

 in fact a vain effort of Nature to develop a second brood, which 

 in a more southern climate, with a longer season, would prove 

 successful. 



But we have said that this was the history of some only, and 

 this fact proves the salvation of the vernal series ; when about 

 half grown, in the middle of August, while the weather is still 

 hot, a portion of the caterpillars suddenly cease to eat and fall 

 into a state of lethargy ; * * * * they do not arouse them- 

 selves until the following spring, when they again resume the 

 cycle of changes peculiar to the vernal series, and by this extra- 

 ordinary habit preserve its history. 



Here we have two independent series in the same species, 

 each single-brooded, but one making an effort toward a second 

 generation, invariably ending in disaster ; the butterfly may 

 therefore be properly considered as " single-brooded," although 

 differing greatly from other single-brooded butterflies, by present- 

 ing three distinct apparitions of the perfect form. Whether by 

 any lethargic feats, the caterpillars of the two series ever unite 

 their faces {sic) and finally have a synchronous and parallel de- 

 velopment, we are as yet unprepared to say ; but that the blood 

 of both series ever commingles through the union of the perfect 

 insect is very improbable, because, although the generations over- 

 lap, the males of a brood are the first to disappear, and at best 

 there would be few that could thus mate ; moreover, since the 

 eggs of the freshly enclosed females are not fully developed for 

 weeks, or even months, the effect of such a union would be ques- 

 tionable; yet if there is no union between the two series, then 

 are the vernal and festival groups practically as distinct from 

 each other as any two species !" 



Mr. Scudder quotes the late H. Doubleday, showing that 

 the habit of Argynnis Euphrosync, of Europe, a species closely 

 allied to Myrina, and belonging to the same sub-section of the 

 genus, did not agree with his conception of Myrina and Bellona, 

 and comments thereon as follows : " By this account the butter- 

 flies lay their eggs on their first appearance ; either they differ in 

 toto from their congeners in America, or there is some error in 

 this statement." (Doubleday's). Mr. Doubleday v/as a lepidop- 

 terest of eminence and it was strange Mr. Scudder did not suspect 

 the error to be in his own statement. Truly the foregoing was a 

 curious history ! 



