( xxviii ) 



proboscis was drawn down into the latter with a pin-point 

 Once there it was usually retained there, but individual butter- 

 flies varied. A few were restive from the outset, some soon 

 became restive, others gorged to complete distention, and 

 when allowed to go so far as this, tended — such at least was 

 my experience — to stop laying. 



Since I adopted the plan of putting my butterflies thus in 

 the stocks for a daily feed I have had far less trouble in obtain- 



P^Js^aJ^'x 



Butterfly-Holder. 

 A = side view. B = view from above. 



ing eggs — even where the box in which the insect was im- 

 prisoned measured no more than nine inches or a foot each 

 way. It has, in fact, been my experience that smallish boxes, 

 in which the butterfly has no great scope for battering and 

 never gets very far away from the food-plant, are more 

 successful than very large ones, and I am inclined to put down 

 my early lack of success in part to my use of too large boxes. 

 As for early deaths, my one complaint now is that so long 

 as they are fed the butterflies tend to go on living indefinitely, 

 even after they have laid their eggs. Where suitable boxes 



