( XX ) 



fragments as could be collected are now cemented to a card 

 and shown beside the nest, while among the pupa? still in situ 

 will be seen the little bosses of silk in which the anal hooks of 

 the detached pupa? were once engaged. 



" Similar nests, presumably of this species, have been 

 described by many travellers. Westwood (Joe. cit.) quotes from 

 Hardy's ' Travels in the Interior of Mexico ' one such account ; 

 and another, by A. Salle, will bo found in the ' Annales de la 

 Societe Entomologique de France,' 1857, p. 20. The latter 

 observer, who discovered his nests on the branches of a small 

 Arbutus, quotes from Humboldt, Essai politique sur le royaume 

 de la Nouvelle-Espagne, Paris, 1827, p. 28, under the name of 

 C'apultos de madrogno, a description of nests which must, it 

 seems, also have belonged to this species. Humboldt gives a 

 short account of the larva, which, however, he considered to 

 be a ' Bombyx.' 



"In the year 1900, Dr. Dyar exhibited two of these nests, 

 which had been sent to Washington by Dr. Alfredo Duges, of 

 Guanajuato, Mexico. Dr. Dyar at the same time showed 

 specimens of the larva, of which he has published a minute 

 description (Proc. Ent. Soc. Washington, vol. iv, 1901, pp. 419, 

 420). The food-plant was stated to bo a species of Arctosta- 

 phylos. In the discussion which followed this exhibit, Dr. 

 Dyar said that this was the only social butterfly known to 

 him. It is no doubt rare in the extreme for the gregarious 

 habit and the construction of a common abode to be carried so 

 far in the case of butterflies as in the present example, but 

 there is possibly at least one other instance to be found 

 among the Pierines. I refer to JVeophasia terlootii, Behr, 

 which also inhabits Mexico and Arizona, and is stated by its 

 describer to feed on an Arbutus, the larva? forming common 

 habitations in which they pupate gregariously. I cannot, 

 however, avoid the suspicion that the nest of Euclieira has 

 by some mistake been attributed to Neophasia, though the 

 testimony of Behr with regard to N. terlootii, originally pub- 

 lished in 1890 and repeated in a letter to Dr. Skinner in 1900, 

 certainly appears to be explicit enough. This latter butterfly 

 is especially interesting as possessing a female which closely 

 resembles some of the mimetic forms of Eiderpe. (See Proc. 



