14 BRITISH BUTTERFLIES. 



the edges of a leaf together so as to form a tube, in which it hides by 

 day, coming out only to feed at night ; the larva of the allied C. ayna 

 is said to have exactly the same habit on rice. The same author (op. 

 cit., v., p. 370) notes that the larva of Parnara bevani forms a tubular 

 cell of a grass- or rice- blade, on the edges of which it feeds, never 

 leaving its retreat, but pupating therein ; whilst the larva of Matapa 

 aria forms a cell by rolling spirally a leaf of bamboo. Of the nest- 

 making habits of the larvse of other exotic Urbicolines, whose pabu- 

 lum consists of the leaves of other endogenous plants, little is known. 

 NiceVille notes that, in Sumatra, the larva of Krinota thrax lives in a 

 shelter made of a portion of a rolled-up leaf of Musa (plantain), culti- 

 vated or wild ; to make this shelter it has to cut into the edge of one 

 of the enormous leaves to obtain a segment to be rolled up ; whilst 

 the larva of Hidari irava spins two leaves of the cocoa-nut palm 

 together, and lives in the retreat thus made. Davidson and Aitken 

 record (Journ. Bom. Nat. Hist. Soc, v., p. 369) that the larva of 

 Suastus gremws, like that of Gamjara thyrsis, forms a tubular cell by 

 joining the edges of a leaf of the cocoa-nut palm, living within it and 

 never leaving it. The same authors observe (op. cit., vol. xi.) that the 

 larva of lambrioc sahala makes at first a loose cell in a leaf of grass or 

 bamboo, but later tightens it by drawing the edges of the leaf together 

 longitudinally. The larva of Halpe vioorei also makes a cylindrical 

 and tightly-closed cell in a leaf in bamboo, but, in its last stage, the 

 cell is altered, being now formed by doubling the leaf transversely 

 across the middle, bringing the apex up to the stalk and joining the 

 edges loosely with silk. The larva of Baoris bada makes an extremely 

 tight cylindrical cell of several blades of rice, lining the inside so 

 tightly with silk that it is very difficult to tear open. Trimen notes the 

 larva of the South African species, Pamphila dysmephila, as drawing 

 the leaves of the wild dwarf date-palm (Phoenix reclinata) together, 

 and forming an incomplete, silk-lined, tube, sometimes six or seven 

 inches in length. 



Different as are the Hesperiines from the Urbicolines in the food- 

 habit, the larvae have very similar methods of making their hiding- 

 places. Scudder, in his " Excursus " on " Nests and other structures 

 made by Caterpillars," says (Butts. New Engl., p. 1155) that "the 

 larvae of all the Hesperidi, in early life, and by many of them through- 

 out life, make a nest by folding over a little piece of leaf, and fastening 

 the edge to the opposite surface by a few loose strands of silk; to effect 

 this, they first bite a little channel into the leaf, at just such a place 

 as to leave a fragment of leaf, neither too large nor too small to serve 

 as a roof, when they shall have turned it over ; often they have to cut 

 two channels in order to procure a flap sufficiently small for their 

 purposes; and it is curious to watch one of these tender creatures, just 

 as soon as it has devoured its eggshell, struggling with a tough oak- 

 leaf, to build for itself a house. These nests are very (irmly 

 made, the silken fastenings being composed of many strands, often 

 very tough. On leaving one nest to construct a larger, the caterpillar 

 always, I believe, first bites off the threads of the old nest, and gives 

 the flap a chance to resume its position, which, however, it rarely fully 

 does. When older, many of these same skippers find a single leaf of 

 their foodplant too small to conceal them, and so they draw several 



