28 BRITISH BUTTERFLIES. 



(op. cit., pp. 426-7), and already quoted (antea, p. 19), will show how 

 closely similar are the habits of these two allied species. 



It is interesting to observe that the imagines of the genera Eugonia 

 (polychloros), Aglais (urticae, milberti), and Polygonia (c-album, comma, 

 etc.), have retained broadly the same wing-markings, yet the larvae of 

 the first two have developed social, and those of the last has retained 

 solitary, habits ; whilst the genera Euvanessa (antiopa) and Vanessa (io), 

 the imagines of which have entirely dissimilar wing-markings from 

 those of the genera just mentioned, have developed, in common with 

 Eugonia and Aglais, social larval habits. 



CHAPTER IV. 



Family habits in butterfly larvae — the fritillaries. 



Probably nothing is more striking than the close general resem- 

 blance in the larval habits of the various groups of the fritillaries. 

 To consider these habits, we may divide these butterflies into three 

 groups — the Argynnids, or large, solitary, violet-feeding species ; the 

 Brenthids, or small, solitary, chiefly violet-feeding species ; and the 

 Melitaeids, or gregarious fritillaries, the last-named group only rather 

 distantly related to the two first-named groups, which are very closely 

 allied. The larval habits of the Argynnids proper, i.e., the large 

 fritillaries, present three striking peculiarities, apart from the remark- 

 able limitation to violet as a foodplant : (1) The fact that all hybernate 

 as larvae in the first instar, either inside or outside the eggshell, and 

 without feeding until the spring. (2) That they are all spring-feeding 

 larvae, an evident result of their hybernating habit. (3) The fact that 

 they hide most persistently by day, running with great rapidity if 

 disturbed, and disappearing very rapidly, especially as they approach 

 maturity. Of our three British Argynnids, Dry as paphia and Argynnis 

 aglaia hybernate as little newly-hatched larvae outside the eggshell, 

 whilst Argynnis adippe hybernates in the same larval stage, but inside 

 the eggshell, as also do A. elisa and A. niobe ; the other European 

 species, so far as is known, hybernating similarly. But this habit 

 must be an exceedingly old one, for, although specifically very distinct 

 from their European allies, the North American species have exactly 

 the same habit, e.g., Speyeria idalia eggs, like those of Dry as paphia, 

 hatch in about a month, the young larvae eat the entire eggshells, 

 and then, without touching any vegetable food, retire at once into 

 hybernation (Butts. New England, p. 542). Speaking of the other 

 large Nearctic Argynnids — Argynnis cybele, A. aphrodite, A. atlantis, 

 etc. — Scudder notes (p. 550) that the eggs hatch in about a fortnight, 

 that the caterpillars, similarly to those of S. idalia, only eat their 

 eggshells, and then immediately go into hybernation. This is exactly 

 the habit of the larva of A. aglaia,-'' and of A. adippe also, except, as 



* Barrett's remarkable statement (Ent. Mo. Blag., xix., p. 6) that the 

 Argynnid larvae he notes — paphia, adippe, aglaia, euphrosyne, and selenc — "pass 

 the winter as small social larvae under a silk tent on the ground," is quite in- 

 explicable. 



