ON THE ABUNDANCE OF THE LARV.E OF PYRAMEIS ATALANTA. 231 



I have taken these hirvte over a large area, but they seem to 

 prefer the neighbourhood of houses and farm-yards, and so may 

 almost be looked upon as a domestic species. I have even found 

 them in the centre of the town wherever a few nettles happened 

 to be growing near a wall or upon a rubbish-heap. 



Farming about here is not carried on in a very scientific 

 manner, and there are many meadows and rough fields where 

 nettles have been allowed to spring up in large patches, together 

 with numerous spear and other thistles. Larvfe are to be found 

 in all these patches, but are more plentiful in those growing 

 near fences. They also prefer the young plants to those that 

 are old and tall, and liable to be blown about by the wind. They 

 are seldom seen in the beds of dusty nettles growing by the road- 

 side. 



In a large field, within five minutes' walk of my house, nettles 

 were very numerous in the early spring, but were cut down 

 about the middle of May. They have now grown up again, and 

 the young and tender shoots are 1| ft. to '2 ft. high. At the 

 beginning of July they were teeming with larvte of all sizes, and 

 on the 24th of the month in about an hour I found sixty-five 

 full-grown larvae and one pupa in this field, and might have 

 taken many more. On the same day I noticed many quite small 

 larvte and others from a quarter- to half-grown. 



The eggs are laid singly and the females take a considerable 

 time in depositing all their ova. They have to be continually 

 moving from place to place to find suitable plants. So many ova 

 are laid one day, then perhaps two or three dull days may inter- 

 vene, and if this happens often she may take a month or 

 perhaps longer before she has finished laying. This accounts 

 for pupffi and very small larvfe being found the same day. 



In the 'Entomologists' Eecord,' xix, pp. 105-8 for 1907 

 I made some remarks on the hibernating habits of this species, 

 and among other things wrote : " Some entomologists seem to 

 think that in certain seasons this butterfly is double-brooded, but 

 I fancy this is a mistake caused by the fact that it is a long-lived 

 species and females deposit their ova from June until August, so 

 that the offspring of the same parent may be living as larvae, 

 pupae, or even imagines at the same times." I should have said 

 that they commence to lay their ova according to the state of 

 the weather— from the middle of April, in early seasons, to 

 towards the end of July. 



The young larvae live in a little house which is formed of a 

 single leaf, carefully turned down and fastened along its edge, 

 and with a small opening at the point through which the larva 

 thrusts its head and eats portions of its own home or the adjoin- 

 ing leaves. When very young they content themselves with 

 nibbling little blotches into the cuticle. The full-grown larvae 

 construct large tents or caves, composed of several leaves 



