232 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



new to me at all events. I, and many others who have collected, 

 €. g., in tho Basses- Alpes in the neighbourhood of Digne in bygone 

 years, have been not a little puzzled to find the larvae and imagines 

 apparently quite absent from the haunts where we found them, it 

 may be, the previous season. Curo gives both Seseli dioicum and 

 S. montanu7n ; Mr. Bromilow adds "and other alpine UmhellifcrcE." 

 So far as I know, larvcfi transported to England and placed on carrot 

 have failed to mature. Mr. B. C. S. Warren and I collected and 

 brought home a number in 1910, but we were not successful in 

 rearing a single individual. Of our garden Seseli, 1 note S. clicho- 

 tomum is stated to be perennial, S. gummiferum biennial, while 

 G. tomentosa — partly (?) biennial at Cannes — is returned in Johnson's 

 ' Gardener's Dictionary,' as a hardy annual when grown in this 

 country. M. Frionnet, in his " Les Premiers l^tats des Lepids. 

 Frangais," makes no mention of the parasites preying on P. alexanor 

 larvse. He also states that the hibernating pupa is " usually attached 

 to rocks," following Mr. F. Bromilow (' Butterflies of the Eiviera,' 

 p. 6). The few pupge I have had in my possession suggest having 

 been attached to the food-plant, though I cannot be sure, as they had 

 been isolated when I received them. The other Papilios of this 

 group, machaon and Iwspiton, are in nature usually attached by silk 

 thread to stems or twigs. With this in mind, I wrote again for further 

 information on the subject of the food-plant and method of pupation 

 to Mr. Morris, who has kindly supplied the following information in 

 answer to my inquiries. — H. Eowland-Bkown. 



" Here and there are still young larvsB of Papilio alexanor feeding 

 with those almost full fed, and it is evident that these late young 

 ones will feed up very badly as the plants run to seed and dry up 

 very rapidly, and, from what I can see, will have done so before the 

 late larvae can arrive at maturity to pupate. This, no doubt, is the 

 reason of the extreme small size of some of the imagines met with. 

 We took one example of no larger than two inches' expanse from tip to 

 tip of its somewhat unusually elongated wings, the hind wings being 

 very small. With regard to the pupation of the larvse, I can only tell 

 vou that in confinement they almost all seek to pupate on the roof — 

 i. e. hoi-izontally. Very few — only four — have taken up a perpendicular 

 position on the sides of the cage. In nature we can nowhere find 

 the pupae, but seeing that the food-plants grow among stones and 

 boulders in dry ravines or rocky banks, I am inclined to agree that 

 they pupate on rocks, and probably under ledges under stones piled 

 on others or forming small caverns, as it were, and herein they get 

 Avarmth from the sun-heat on the stones (which are always like hot 

 bricks now) and moisture coming up from the ' wet earth ' from the 

 melting snows and spring rains, giving them the necessary warm 

 vapour in which to emerge at the due season. And again, the 

 wonderful form, hardness and coloration of the pupa all lead one 

 to believe that its site of pupation is on rocks, where it is evident 

 it would be so well disguised as to protect it from reptiles, to which 

 I have no doubt a certain number fall victims both before and during 

 pupation as well as ichneumon guests. I wish I could give you 

 more certain information. I am convinced, however, that the form 



