52 BRITISH BUTTERFLIES. 



for itself a house. These nests are usually very firmly made, the silken 

 fastenings being composed of many strands, often very tough. On 

 leaving one nest to construct a larger one, the caterpillar always appears 

 to first bite off the threads of the old nest, and thus give the flap a 

 chance to resume its position, which, however, it rarely fully does. 

 When older, many of these same ' skipper ' larvae find a single leaf of 

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

 leaves together, just as they grow upon the plant, and, retaining them 

 in the desired place by silken bands, the larvae live within the 

 silken bower. This mode of construction is adopted almost from 

 the first by the Pamphilids, which feed on grasses, the proximity of 

 adjoining blades near the base affording a good chance to attach them 

 together, while a cluster of blades furnishes a similar chance to 

 construct the somewhat tubular nest they require when they have 

 grown large and fat." As to the value of these homes, Niceville 

 observes (Butts, of Sumatra, p. 394) that the larva of a large 

 " skipper " butterfly, Hidari irava, and that of a Nymphalid, Amathusia 

 phidippas, live, at the same time, on the leaves of Cocos nucifera, and 

 he remarks that, owing to their general abundance, the two species 

 often have a severe struggle to live together, in which the. more robust 

 Hesperiid, which secures a shelter for itself by spinning the leaves 

 together, is generally victorious. Even among the Papilios, the larvae 

 do not disdain to use this mode of protection, and whilst that of 

 Jasoniades glaucus merely spins silk on the surface of the leaf on 

 which it rests, so that the edges of the leaf curl up and conceal its 

 sides, the larva of Euphoeades troilus spins the leaf completely over, 

 so that the opposite edges touch, and itself thus becomes quite hidden. 

 The purpose of gregarious nests appears to be twofold. In one case, 

 e.g., that represented by Aporia crataegi, the nest is very definitely intended 

 for the purpose of concealment ; in the other case, e.g., that represented 

 by Euvanessa antiopa and Aglais urticae, the silken web appears, 

 especially after the larvae have reached the second stadium, to be merely 

 a means of keeping up a connection between the various parts of the 

 gregarious company, and to be little used for the purpose of hiding. 

 Scudder, referring to the larvae of Euvanessa antiopa, notes that 

 " they move about from place to place, spinning wherever they go, so 

 that, at last, the line of movement, by successive strands thrown across 

 every angle that a twig makes with the larger stem, forms a sort of 

 veil of silk over which they crawl with extreme rapidity, but without 

 which their movements are greatly retarded." Although our single 

 British Apaturid species has a solitary larva, those of one of the 

 American species, Chlorippe clyton, are gregarious in their first three 

 stadia, and use their web much in the same manner as that just 

 described as usual for Euvanessa antiopa. They feed side by side in 

 rows, eating the leaves from the tips backward, but leaving the stouter 

 ribs ; they form a pathway of silk wherever they go, but make no 

 special structures for concealment. The larvae of the allied C. celtis 

 lives solitarily, but lines the upper surface of a leaf of Celtis with silk 

 in such a manner as to cause the sides to curl slightly upward, and 

 thus partially conceal it from view. Similarly, the larva of Anaca 

 andrica lines the upper surface of Croton with silk, bringing the upper 

 edges together without fastenings, and thus makes a nest like that of 

 Euphoeades (troilus), within which it lies concealed, eating the base of 



