FAMILY HABITS IN BUTTERFLY LARV.E THE LIMENITIDS. 33 



CHAPTER V. 



FAMILY HABITS IN BUTTERFLY LARVAE THE LIMENITIDS. 



It is remarkable how strongly developed are the family larval habits 

 of the Limenitids or " white admiral " butterflies. Although we have 

 only one British species, Limenitis sibylla, it offers, in its larval habits, 

 almost all the main features common to the larvae of the group, both 

 throughout the Palsearctic and Nearctic regions. All, for example, are 

 autumn- and spring-feeding larvae ; all hybernate in the third (or 

 fourth) instar, i.e., fairly well grown; each spins a peculiar encasement, 

 made of a leaf of its foodplant, in which to hybernate ; in the spring they 

 spin an abundance of silk to give a safe footing in travelling from one 

 part of the foodplant to another ; they eat greedily, and then retire to 

 a safe place (usually a stem of the foodplant) to rest, and are then 

 readily overlooked ; they often select a similar part of the foodplant 

 for pupation. The Palaearctic group of the Limenitids is represented 

 by Limenitis (sibylla, Camilla), Najas (populi), and Neptis (lucilla, 

 aceris), the Nearctic by the interesting genus Basilarchia (arthemis, 

 archip>pus, eros, etc.). 



Among the most remarkable of the family habits mentioned are those 

 (1) relating to the position of rest when not feeding, and (2) the forma- 

 tion of a hybernaculum. We have already quoted Buckler's description 

 (Larvae, etc., i., p. 41) of the hybernaculum of Limenitis sibylla, which 

 is usually placed three or four buds down from the tip of a twig shoot- 

 ing out from the main stalk of a honeysuckle-bine. The one described 

 is made of a honeysuckle leaf, which had been first partly bitten through 

 near its axil, and then securely fixed by its two edges for about half 

 its length to the twig from which it grew, and across which its edges 

 are firmly bound with a spinning of strong silk ; the remainder of the 

 leaf curved off from the twig at an angle of about 40°, being divided 

 along the midrib for about -lin. from the tip — thus forming two little 

 hare's-earsas it were — and from them up to the twig, having its two edges 

 firmly spun together. Just at the point where this half of the leaf meets 

 the underside of the twig, there is a circular aperture, apparently 

 designed for the egress of the larva in spring. As the leaf withers, the 

 hybernaculum becomes puckered, and little more than half-an-inch in 

 length, and has the appearance of a small shrivelled leaf, clinging 

 to the dry stem, and would thus easily escape ordinary observation. 

 The whole structure is firmly fixed to the twig, and could not swing 

 with an independent motion of its own. Of the same species, Breyer 

 observes (Ann. Soc. Ent. Belg., v., pp. 62-63) that the larva of L. 

 sibylla, when preparing to hybernate, rests on the pedicel of a leaf, of 

 which it has eaten all but two basal portions ; these two lobes it pulls 

 over itself to form a small tube ; and the pedicels are so attached to 

 the twig by silk that the leaf does not fall during the winter. Gillmer 

 states (in litt.) that the larva of the allied L. Camilla has a very similar 

 habit, forming its hybernaculum by standing on the bine of the 

 honeysuckle and spinning a piece of leaf over itself. Of Najas populi, 

 Dorfmeister notes (Yerh. zool.-bot. Gesell. Wien., iv., pp. 483-6) that 



