TSE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 59 



selves while undergoing moult, or protecting their eggs when in the nest. I 



recollect coming across a locality near QuebeCj where a kind of long grass was 



growing. I noticed that the tops of several of the blades of grass were bent 



in a curious manner. This led me to open one of them, and in it and other 



specimens, I found a spider undergoing moult. There was very little silk 



used in this form, which was constructed as follows : The spider first bent 



the top of a blade of grass downwards to a certain distance, attaching two of 



the edges together with silk, when it found this firm, it next proceeded to 



bend the remaining portion of the top upwards, thus inclosing itself in an 



oblong triangular cell, about an inch and a half long. This was indeed au 



ingenious contrivance to keep off its enemies. 



I am anxious to obtain further information regarding the spiders that are 



found in this latitude, and which do not make use of silk, as a whole, to cover 



themselves or their eggs. 



- — • — - 



HABITS OF MELIT^A PHAETON. 



I notice in the Entomologist, No. 4, some remarks on Melitœa Phaeton. 

 I think there is something exceptional in the habits of this species, and I 

 hope the observations of your correspondents may give us light. 



On 1st May, 1868, one of my young friends in this neighborhood brought 

 me eleven chrysalids of Phaeton^ part of which he had found suspended to 

 fence rails. He reported the caterpillars as crawling along the rails, and that 

 he had tried to bring me some of them, but before he could reach me (living 

 four miles distant,) all that he had taken had changed to chrysalids. I 

 directed him to search for the food plant. 



He returned two or three times, and up to 18th May had brought me 80 

 chrysalids and but two larvge, the latter of which changed within a few hours 

 after I received them. My friend reported that he had taken part of the 

 larvae from the pawpaw bushes, on which they seemed to be crawling and 

 not feeding, and could give me no more information on the subject. I was 

 unable to go personally to the spot, but next May will endeavor to investigate 

 fully. From all these chrysalids I scarcely obtained half-a-dozen butterflies, 

 and part of these were cripples. They began to emerge on 18th May. These 

 larvse probably came from eggs laid the previous May or June, for there 

 certainly is but one brood annually hereabouts. I have taken the butterfly 

 in no year later than the end of June, and they could not have escaped my 

 notice or the notice of some of my collectors here, if they had appeared 

 later, or in a second brood. Vegetation with us is far advanced by 1st May, 

 and by 1st April our shrubs are partly leaved out, so that larvae emerging 

 from the egg early in April would be at maturity early in May. 



