148 FIFTH ANNUAL KEPORT 



have found so many dark specimens, the dark spots x^haracteristic of 

 the third stage enduring till the fourth, and the purple-brown freck- 

 lings between the papillae so numerous as to make the sides, more 

 especially, quite dark. Suggestively enough, the leaves of the plant at 

 that season are almost universally covered with freckles of exactly 

 the same color. On this plant, also, the chrysalis is invariably sus- 

 pended ur.der a parasol of leaves connected by silken threads, and 

 so effectually is it hidden from view that a person not acquainted 

 with the insect might travel for a day over ground where he would 

 necessarily disturb one at every step, and yet remain perfectly uncon- 

 scious of the fact. 



TWO BROODS EACH YEAR. 



It is generally believed that the species is single-brooded;* but 

 this is evidently a mistake. Though I have not reared one generation 

 from the other, I have no doubt that, like Archippus^ it is double- 

 brooded, because I have watched females depositing the fore part of 

 September, which, from their fresh appearance, could not have hiber- 

 nated. The females, in all probability, deposit as soon as the food- 

 plants appear; and as this is rather late in the season, we seldom find 

 any larvae before the middle of July. Butterflies are produced from 

 this first brood of larvee during the month of August, and during that 

 month, September and often into October — or until the plants dry up 

 or are frozen — the insect may be found in all stages. Last year, on 

 the 3rd of October, I found eggs and young larvae, which were doomed 

 to a sorry death, since a few days later a frost killed and blackened 

 the plants upon which they occurred. The second brood of worms, 

 as would naturally be expected, is far more numerous than the first, 

 and, as in so many other species, the two broods doubtless overlap 

 each other. 



ITS WINTER QUARTERS. 



That, as with Archippus, the butterflies hibernate, there is no 

 longer any doubt whatever, as I have kept them throughout the winter, 

 and so has Mr. Muhleman. Mr. Hayhurst also writes :f "During 

 winter, (1870,) in February, a tree was felled on the line of the rail- 

 road on which I was at work. As it fell it split open and was found 

 to be hollow. The cavity was partly filled with dirt and hickory-nut 

 shells ; but among the stuff that fell out were some twenty butterflies, 

 mostly Vanessas—Antiopa and Atalcmia. But among these were 



*Mr. L. K. Hayhurst, of Sedalia, writes to Mr. Wm. H. Edwards (•Butterflies of N. A. , Vol. I, 

 p. 1.39 J : " This species has but one brood." Mr. J. R. Muhlejnan (ibid) writes : "I am satisfled there 

 is but one brood." I think I can safely say that Mr. Muhleman is now of a different opinion, having 

 himself had the chrysalis as early as the 5th of August. o 



tin Edwards's "Butterflies of N. A., '•"previously mentioned. 



