SPHINX CHERSIS 151 



should profit by the information given us by the robin 

 when it was so much to his disadvantage, but we knew 

 that he could have access to other fringe-trees in our 

 neighbors' grounds, and we thought of the many pea- 

 pods he had opened, the peas he had eaten, and the 

 cherries and early pears he had spoiled by pecking 

 holes in their best sides, and hardened our hearts. It 

 seemed fair that we should profit by his food, since he 

 profited by ours. 



We searched that fringe-tree daily the rest of the 

 season, into October, and every few days we found 

 eggs, or caterpillars from eggs laid too high on the tree 

 for us to see them. Almost every caterpillar was 

 stung, we found later, but from the eggs we reared 

 perfect larvse, pupie, and moths. 



The next year we began our search the first of July, 

 and found eggs just ready to hatch. For three years 

 we found eggs and larvae on that tree from early Jiily 

 until late September, the last caterpillars feeding until 

 late in October. During this time there was not a 

 week when we failed to find eggs, showing that the 

 moths were flying constantly from June till late Sep- 

 tember, and that if there are two broods they overlaji, 

 having no interval. 



The eggs were ovoid, bright green, and always on the 

 under side of the leaves, one on a Ijaf. We marked 

 leaves as having no eggs on them, and then examined 

 them daily until we found eggs. This gave us the 

 date of egg-laying and the length of the egg-period. 

 The eggs turned almost white before hatching, and the 

 egg-period was six days in some instances, seven in 

 others. 



