i eS Say seal a 
“Baltimore Checker-spot” Butterfly 229 
tinue to dwell in the nest until spring. In the latter part of 
August in the north, and about the middle of July in the south, 
the caterpillars stop eating and become ene yet they are 
not dormant, as they crawl about immediately when the nest 
is disturbed. They do not resume their act until spring, 
when they abandon the web and begin to wander. At this time 
they feed upon Lonicera and other plants, conspicuously exposed 
except when molting or during storms. They attain full growth 
in May; the pupal stage lasts from 14 to 18 ‘days; and the 
earliest butterflies appear in southern New England at the end 
ay or beginning of June. In the vicinity of Boston they 
are seldom seen before June 12. Scudder says in regard to 
the food plants, that “the principal food of the caterpillar, at 
least when young, is the snakehead, Chelone ve but it feeds 
also on other scrophulariaceous plants, and when past middle 
life, on Lonicera and other caprifoliaceous lagi? Most other 
es books on butterflies mention only snakehead. 
the wooded, hilly country southwest of St. Louis, the 
= Fe phaéton butterflies are seen every year, but usually 
in sparse numbers, first appearing after the middle of May and 
lasting a month or more. There are no marshes in this territory, 
and the butterflies are most often seen in the dry valleys, and 
occasionally on the hillsides. Chelone glabra does not grow in 
these places, and local collectors have ae a long time been baffled 
in their attempts to reconcile the distribution of the aS es in 
rise region with what is known about its life history and 
havi 
be the summer of 1932, the writer found a number of 
nests containing caterpillars of this species on a tall, yellow- 
flowered gerardia (Aureolaria grandiflora Benth.) ,* which grows 
on the oak-covered hillsides where the butterfly is sometimes 
foun Nests were Pagel on this plant at Ranken (on two 
different hills), Allenton, and near Antonia; in the succeeding 
fa amily (Scrophulariaceae) or on caprifoliaceous plants. In the 
spring of 1933, however, nearly or quite full grown larvae were 
*Other observers also have reported this caterpillar on Aureolaria. 
Aretas A. Saunders (“Butterflies of the Allegany State Park,” N. Y. 
State a peas 13, 1932) found the caterpillars on yellow 
gerardias (Au aria) both in spring and fall in Connecticut, a 
noted the buttorfes ona high, dry, rocky ridge where this plant 
grow was unable to induce them i eat snowball “Tibaraae 
tomentosum) and they png? to dislike Japanese honeysuckle 
found nests of the larvae. on tall-growing gerardias high up on dry, 
hislscneaded ridges near Willard, Missouri. 
