FAMILY HABITS IN BUTTERFLY LARVAE THE VANESSID3. 27 



cealing themselves by drawing together the outer edges with silken 

 threads. When young, they eat little roundish holes in the middle of 

 the leaves, and, when their meal is over, rest with their tails close to 

 the holes, their heads towards the midrib ; although a number are 

 usually born on the same leaf, or several in one cluster, and, therefore, 

 for at least a part of its life, a caterpillar does not lack companions, 

 yet they are in no way social, but strictly solitary from birth, e.g., 

 Polygonia comma in early life lives without concealment, on the under 

 surface of a leaf ; later, it still conceals itself on the underside of a 

 leaf, the outer edges of which are drawn together by silken threads 

 sufficiently to afford protection from light and weather, and, from this 

 cover, the larva emerges at night to feed, beginning at the extremity 

 of a leaf and consuming it evenly across until not enough is left for 

 shelter, when it betakes itself to another and repeats the processs." 

 Edwards found that the larva of this species first sheltered itself very 

 shortly after reaching its third larval stage, and that it effected its 

 object by biting off the principal ribs of the base of a leaf on either 

 side of a midrib, after the manner of Pyrameis atalanta, and was thus 

 the better able to pull the sides of the leaf together, but, in the later 

 stages, the ribs were not bitten, the caterpillar being able to draw the 

 edges together without that precaution. The leaves of elm, being 

 more refractory than those of the other foodplants, the larva bites out a 

 couple of channels on either side of the leaf, starting about 1cm. from 

 the base, and cutting obliquely towards, but not to, the midrib, 

 through two or more ribs ; the corners of the flaps thus formed of the 

 larger parts of the leaf are then fastened together by a few strands of 

 weak silk, rarely extending more than l-5cm. beyond the corner. 

 The rest, therefore, flares open apically, and, when half-eaten, bears 

 some resemblance to a saddle. In these nests one never finds more 

 than a single inhabitant. It may be further noted how similar the 

 larval habits of P. comma are to those of P. c-album, for they feed on 

 hop, elm, and nettle, and the species are both double-brooded. Similarly, 

 the larva of the allied species, P. satyrus, draws the leaves of nettle 

 together for a hiding-place, just as that of P. comma does, and the 

 larvae of P. faunus and P. progne, like those of their allies, live on the 

 underside of the leaves of their foodplant, particularly when young. 

 Edwards notes, too, the peculiar habit that the more mature larva of 

 P. progne has of coiling round on a leaf, and then throwing the 

 last three abdominal segments high in the air when at rest, 

 much as one notices P. c-albiun to do sometimes when nearly full- 

 grown. 



Of the gregarious Vanessids, Scudder notes (op. cit., p. 405) that 

 the larval habits are just the same in North America as in Europe ; 

 the young larvae spinning a thin web, enclosing a twig, but not the 

 leaves, keeping to the carpet, and extending it as they grow and as 

 twig after twig is stripped, whilst the social instinct is retained 

 throughout the larval life. Of Aglais milberti, generally considered 

 specifically distinct from A. urticae, and the larvae of both of which feed 

 on nettle, the same author observes (op. cit., p. 417) that, during early 

 life, the caterpillars are sociable, living together under a common web, 

 subsequently dispersing themselves indiscriminately over the plant, 

 almost identically in the same manner as the larvae of A. urticae. 

 Reference to Scudder's detailed description of the larva of this species 



