﻿SUCCESSFUL BREEDING OF PAPILIO MACHAON. 83 



The autumn of 1913 I obtained a few dozen chrysalids of 

 machaon from various sources, including Cambridge fen-collected 

 wild ones, and a good supply from the Continent, placing them 

 in the breeding cage, fully exposed to the winter frosts, but 

 protected as far as possible from predatory lice, earwigs and 

 other small game having a penchant for succulent pupa3. 



The second week of February, 1914, I planted a dozen good 

 carrots in six-inch pots in order to provide a supply of luxuriant 

 foliage at time of emergence of the butterflies, as I have found 

 that they oviposit very freely on this easily obtained food-plant. 



The butterflies commenced to emerge about the second week 

 in May, and continued doing so at intervals for nearly a month : 

 meanwhile, I had also prepared a good supply of honey-yielding 

 flowers, such as hyacinths, narcissi, wall-flowers, &c., grown in 

 pots and boxes, and I also hung sponges in small pieces soaked 

 with honey, in different parts of the cage. 



The weather was rather cold and sunless at first, and the 

 imagines which ventured out first were quite dormant, and 

 appeared starved ; however, a few days' hot sunshine made a 

 marvellous difference, and one fine morning on going to visit 

 them I was pleased to see that a very handsome couple had 

 paired, and others were coquetting and sportively flying amongst 

 the flowers and food-plants which I had arranged to fill up the 

 whole of the floor. As days passed other pairings took place, 

 two that I noted, though probably there may have been others, 

 as the ova, laid indiscriminately on upper and under sides, and 

 edges of foliage, began to appear in very considerable quantities. 



There were observable differences in size, one batch being 

 distinctly larger, and of a much darker green, than the rest, 

 the hues varying from that colour to pale lemon. It was quite 

 easy and interesting to examine them at this stage with a 

 powerful hand-lens, by simply removing one of the pots of 

 carrots for the purpose. On about the fifth day after having 

 been laid, the egg assumes a darker colour, and continues so 

 doing to the point of hatching, when it becomes a very deep 

 purplish-black with a definite bloom on it. On examination 

 through the lens the shell appears perfectly transparent, and 

 the young larva can be distinctly seen wriggling about, quite 

 ready to eat its way out, and I watched the actual process many 

 times. On complete emergence the young larvae generally 

 crawled an inch or two away from the shell, returning in about 

 two hours to demolish the remnants of the empty shell as the 

 first solid meal. They soon commenced to crawl over the 

 foliage, and fed for about five days before laying up for the first 

 moult. 



As the butterflies kept emerging I watched carefully for ova, 

 but on a strict examination of all the carrot plants I was really 

 astonished at the large number, which could not have totalled 



