FAMILY HABITS IN BUTTEKFLY LARVAE THF, URBICOLIDS. 11 



species feeding from June to September, and then hybernating — N. 

 taaes as a fullfed larvae that pupates in spring, H. malvae as pupa (the 

 pupal stage being assumed in August and September). As showing 

 the peculiar similarities in the feeding-period in distant species, the 

 larva of Cyclopides palaemon, belonging to an entirely different branch of 

 the " skippers" from that claiming Nisoniades taijes, has an absolutely 

 similar summer-feeding larval period, viz., from June to September, 

 and then, like the latter, hybernates as a full-fed larva. 



We have already noted (supra) that the feeding-period of the larva 

 of Krynnis lacatherae extends over autumn and spring, yet the larva 

 of the allied E. althaeae and E. alceae are reported by the authorities 

 to be purely summer-feeding larvae, hybernating full-fed, and pupating 

 in the spring without further feeding. The larva of Powellia sao is 

 also said to have thisNisoniadid habit, as well as the larva of Hesperia 

 serratulae. The larva of Bremeria maculatus is said to have a com- 

 paratively short summer feeding-period, and, like that of Hesperia 

 ntalrae, to pupate in the autumn. Muschampia proto and Hesperia 

 carthami are both reported to have -over-wintering larvae, but in what 

 stage hybernation occurs is not recorded ; on the other hand, Hesperia 

 alveus is said to hybernate as egg, quite unlike any of the closely- 

 allied species, and hence to have a spring and early summer feeding- 

 period. Our knowledge, however, of these species is most unsatis- 

 factory, and Chapman observes (in litt.) that the larvae of M. proto are 

 so very small in the early spring, at Taormina, in Sicily, that it 

 almost suggests that the species winters as an egg. 



Practically nothing reliable appears to have been recorded of the 

 feeding-period of the Urbicolid larvae outside Europe. Scudder notes 

 that tbe Nearctic Anthomaster leonardus appears to hybernate as a 

 newly-hatched larva, that Atrytone zabulon passes the winter some- 

 times as a mature larva and sometimes as a pupa, a very unlikely 

 suggestion, although the evidence is sufficient to suggest a summer 

 feeding-period for the larva of this species. These few uncertain 

 statements are all that have come under our notice on the feeding- 

 period of the extra-European larvae of this group. 



One larval habit, however, appears very general throughout the 

 superfamily, viz., the making of a hiding-place of drawn-together 

 leaves, in which the larvae secrete themselves by day and from which, 

 wholly or partially, they come out to feed by night. The habit is 

 quite independent of foodplant, habitat, or age of larva. The young 

 larva of Adopaea lineola is said, in April, to take up a position in the 

 middle of a grass-blade, to draw the blade together by spinning silken 

 threads over the back, and enlarging its home with its growth ; in this 

 it lives by day, retreating backwards down the tube if disturbed, but 

 being found outside near the top of the grass- blade at dusk. The 

 larva of Thymeliats acteon also rolls a grass-blade into a cylindrical 

 tube, open at both ends, fastening the edges of the blade together by 

 stout white silken threads, but, as it increases in size, using two neigh- 

 bouring blades, fastened along their edges, instead of one: in this 

 retreat it rests by day along the flat surface of the leaf, and leaves it 

 at night to feed on the upper part of the blades. Although the larva 

 of Adopaea fiava leaves the egg in August, it adopts a similar habit, 

 spinning, as soon as hatched, little web-coverings for itself on a grass- 

 blade, whilst, after hybernation, it makes a longish tube, coming out 



