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THR KNTOMOT.OGIST. 



tion have proved on the whole a faihire, the breeding and obser- 

 vation of the species of exotic Papilionidfe described in the 

 foregoing notes have been of great interest to me, and I hope 

 that time will enable me to extend what I feel to be a limited 

 and^ superficial knowledge of the life-habits of this family. 

 Various attractive by-paths, too, have presented themselves, 

 exemplifying the paradox that the more men know the more 

 ignorant they become. Since each fact which the human mind 

 adds to its slender store increases in ever-growing proportion 

 the number of those which it becomes possible for it to learn. 

 The subject of the food-habit of the group in itself opens a long, 

 if not endless, vista for research. For instance, to touch on 

 one small matter, why should the Aristolochia-feeding habit, 

 which seems to confer complete immunity from parasitic attack 

 on the larva and pupa of Laertias philejior, only protect to so 

 small an extent those of Papilio alcinous? Or to take quite 

 another line of investigation, is the remarkable general likeness 

 which exists between the full-grown larvae of Jasoniades glaiicus, 

 Euphoeades troilus, Papilio xiithus, and Papilio hianor due to the 

 fact that these species are closely allied, or is it merely a similar 

 mea,ns of protection evolved by the organism in a similar 

 environment ? As an example of the latter, I would instance 

 the case of the partly-grown larva of Hyloicus pinastri, which, 

 when it is of the same size as the full-grown larva of Panolis 

 piniyerda, presents so striking a likeness to it that it would be 

 difficult to tell the two apart were it not for the presence of the 

 anal horn in the Sphingid. 



Yet the pleasure which I have derived from observing and 

 experimenting with my Papilios has been equalled, if not sur- 

 passed, by that which I have taken in watching the liberated 

 imagines flying about my garden— quam familiariter — sights 

 such as an apparently endless succession of hianor chasing one 

 another over a high hedge of Escallonia macrantlia one fine 

 summer morning, or of some thirty yhilenor feeding simul- 

 taneously with quivering wings at a patch of the still bluer 

 flowers of Anchusa var. Dropmore, will not soon be forgotten by 

 me. If by giving their freedom to those beautiful creatures I 

 have raised false hopes in the breasts of some brother entomo- 

 logists, I wish to tender them a formal apology. But I am 

 inwardly impenitent. For I look forward to the time when man 

 who has done so much to beautify his life by surrounding his 

 habitations with the flowers of other countries than his own, 

 will do so to a lesser extent by introducing various exotic kinds 

 of the Lepidoptera, which, in the past of this planet, played so 

 important a part in the development of the flowers themselves ; 

 perhaps improving and adapting insect life to his purpose by 

 means of artificial selection, as he is beginning to do with plant 

 life. 



