146 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



interest were the extraordinary number of Argiades corydon and 

 Polyommatus damon by the sides of the railway between Monthey 

 and Champ^ry, the former exceptionally large. It was just 

 above the little station of Trois Torrents that they appeared to 

 fill the air, fluttering even into the carriage windows. From 

 this their number gradually declined till after leaving the station 

 of Champery, both became decidedly scarce. Perhaps at the 

 slightly higher altitude they had not yet fully emerged, and those 

 taken were not large specimens. 

 St. Stephen's Vicarage, Guernsey. 



NOTES ON ANOSIA PLEXIPPUS. 

 By the Kev. James Aiken, M.A. 



An interesting article on Anosia plexippus (life-history) ap- 

 pears in your December number (Entom. xliv. pp. 377-382) 

 from the pen of Mr. Frohawk. The following extracts from my 

 note-book may be of interest in so far as the observations were 

 made on the insect in its own natural conditions. 



In British Guiana the food-plant is Asclepias currassavica 

 exclusively, so far as I have observed. This butterfly invariably 

 lays its eggs singly on the under side of the leaf. Alighting on 

 the apical quarter it arches the abdomen under the leaf and 

 deposits the egg generally about the middle, then flits away in 

 search of another plant. The egg matures in two to three days, 

 and the larva grows rapidly. Some eggs which I took on March 

 18th hatched out the same day. On March 24th the cater- 

 pillars were about IMn. in length, and one pupated on 26th. 

 Another attached itself to top of breeding-cage, and was attacked 

 by a third smaller caterpillar. The pupating larva shook him- 

 self and wriggled, but the cannibal continued his attack until 

 he had eaten a deepish groove in the mid-dorsal region of his 

 mate, about 20 millim. long and 2 millim. broad. I put fresh 

 leaves in the box when I observed the attack, but the cannibal 

 did not leave his prey until the death of the resting larva the 

 following morning. This larva pupated on April 1st. 



The pupal stage lasted on the average ten days for these and 

 for some nearly full-grown wild caterpillars taken on October 

 30th, 1910, at Mara, on the Berbice Eio. These pupated be- 

 tween November 2nd and 3rd, and the imagines emerged on 12th 

 and 13th. 



One of these pupae attached itself in quite a peculiar way to 

 a leaf-stalk by grasping the thin twig in a groove of the abdomen 

 formed between the sixth and seventh segments, and so hung 

 partially curled round the stalk. The imago successfully 

 extricated itself on November 13th. 



