NOTES ON YANESSID LAKV^E. 15 



too crowded, so I divided them into three lots, under separate 

 cylinders. I now had four cylinders on the table in front of my 

 sitting-room window, where I could see and note everything that 

 went on. 



On June 29th one or two of the second lot of larva?, taken on 

 the 20th, suspended themselves from the muslin roof of the 

 cylinder, but others seemed to have some difficulty in doing so, 

 and were evidently suffering from the attacks of parasites. A 

 few had ceased to feed and were resting in a listless humped-up 

 condition on their food-plant. The lame in the other cylinders 

 — those taken on June 10th — were all feeding up well and 

 rapidly, and by July 1st had become pupae. At this date of the 

 second lot of larvae only seven had changed to pupae, and the 

 remainder appeared to be stung, and I found several fat white 

 maggots wriggling about on the paper on which the cylinder was 

 standing, and also a number of dark reddish-brown fly pupae 

 about the size of those of the common house-fly. 



The first butterflies emerged on July 14th and by the 18th 

 they had all hatched out as follows : 



Seven only from the 50 larvae taken on June 20th ; the rest 

 were all ichneumoned or died. 



Of the 141 larvae comprising the first lot— taken June 10th — ■ 

 every one produced a butterfly, so this seems to prove that very 

 young larvae are not attacked by parasites. 



On August 1st I found another small brood of larvae, about 

 half grown, and took 58 of them. This was probably a second 

 brood. By the 12th most of them had changed to pupae, but 

 there were six or seven white maggots and a few brown fly pupae 

 lying on the paper beneath the cylinder. The butterflies emerged 

 on August 2l8t and 22nd, 46 altogether, so only 12 of these 

 larvae failed to produce imagines. This brood therefore seems to 

 have escaped the attention of parasites to a considerable extent. 

 The larvae were found in a bed of nettles beneath the shadow of 

 some willow trees, where they were more or less sheltered. 



In various countries abroad I found such Vanessid larvae as I 

 attempted to rear on board ship were singularly free from the 

 attacks of parasites. In 1878, when up the Dardanelles in 

 H.M.S. " Cygnet " — during the Kusso-Turkish war — the larvae of 

 V.antiopa were abundant on both sides of the Straits throughout 

 May and June. In the neighbourhood of Gallipoli, on June 

 13th, I noticed a number of full-grown larvae wandering about 

 the branches of a small willow tree as if they were looking for 

 sheltered positions where they could attach themselves for pupa- 

 tion. I took 30 of the largest, and when I returned to the ship 

 put them into an empty biscuit tin, and tied a piece of muslin 

 over the top. The next morning they were all hanging to the 

 muslin, and by the evening of the 15th had become pupae. The 

 butterflies emerged on the 26th, and were most magnificent 



