CONTRIBUTIONS TO EXPERIMENTAL 

 ENTOMOLOGY' 



I. JUNONIA CCENIA HUBNER 



BY 



WILLIAM REIFF 



Towards the end of September I received, through the kindness 

 of Mr. Jacob Doll, of Brooklyn, N. Y., a considerable number of 

 caterpillars of Junonia coenia Hiibner which had been found near 

 Brooklyn in a portion of Long Island that is rather damp and over- 

 grown with bushes and low plants. Here the butterflies had been 

 rather abundant one or two months previously. Mr. Doll assures 

 me that the frequency of J. coenia in this region is not at all the 

 rule. Although the butterflies are never completely absent in 

 any year, there are usually only a few caterpillars to be found. 

 J. coenia in the northern states belongs, therefore, to the cate- 

 gory of butterflies that appear in great numbers only during cer- 

 tain years. It is, moreover, probable that the abundance of this 

 form is due to migration from the south, and that this migration 

 to the north would be the stronger the dryer and hotter the season. 

 The summer of 1908 would seem to justify this supposition. 



The caterpillars, which, as I have said, were present in num- 

 bers, fed on Gerardia purpurea L., which is cited as their favorite 

 food-plant by Scudder in his work on "The Butterflies of New- 

 England." As I could obtain no material of Gerardia, I gave 

 them Linaria linaria Karst, Plantago media L., and Plantago 

 major L. Plantago media was not eaten at all; Linaria linaria 

 only unwillingly, but Plantago major with evident relish. 



A considerable portion of the material unfortunately died of 

 flacherie (flaccidenza). As soon as I recognized the disease I, of 



'Contributions from the Entomological Laboratory of the Bussey Institution, Harvard University. 

 No. I. 



The Journal of Experimental Zoology, vol. vi, no. 4. 



