36 BRITISH BUTTERFLIES. 



upon its feeding-ground when its appetite is satiated, but retires to the 

 untouched midrib of the leaf, where the sides have been eaten away, 

 or, when larger, to a twig ; in either case, it stops when it has reached 

 its favourite spot, and rests immovable, heading away from its food. 

 Appetite returning, it wheels about, hurries to the old feeding-spot, 

 and, its meal finished, returns again to its accustomed station for a 

 new siesta. Of Basilarchia astyanax, Scudder notes (op. cit., p. 295) 

 that, whilst feeding, it rests upon the upper surface of a leaf, eating 

 the edges from the apex to the base, invariably returning to the same 

 spot at each meal, until all is devoured excepting the basal half of the 

 midrib, when it passes to the adjoining leaf. The lovely B. eros is a 

 southern species, and of it Edwards observes (Pap., ii.) that the 

 larval habits are precisely like those of B. arthemis and B. archippus. 

 The larvae make at once, after leaving the egg, perches of the midribs 

 of the leaves they feed on, lengthen and stiffen the perches by binding 

 on, with silk, morsels of chewed leaf, so that their slender resting- 

 places do not curl up or bend ; on these they live, except when they go 

 to the next edges of the leaves to feed. Equally interesting is it to find 

 the following note on the habits of the young larva of the Indian species, 

 Maduza procris, of which Davids and Aitken write (Journ. Bomb. Nat. 

 Hist. Soc, v., p. 274) : " When young, it is slender, cylindrical, evenly 

 clothed with short spinous tubercles, and of an uniform dark brown 

 colour. It remains on one leaf, eating it regularly back from the 

 point, but leaving the midrib, and, as it eats, it fringes the eaten 

 margin with its excrement, held together by silk, among which 

 it is absolutely indistinguishable." Of the European species, Najas 

 populi is distinctly nearer the American Basilarchias than are 

 the Limenitids and Neptids. It is, perhaps, therefore, a little less 

 remarkable to find the larva of this species having almost 

 identical habits with the American species, but, according to Dorf- 

 meister (Verh. zool.-bot. Wien., iv., pp. 483-6) the young larva of X. 

 populi eats a piece out of a leaf of Populus tremula, on either side of 

 the midrib, on the extreme tip of which it takes up a position whilst 

 resting. The midrib is covered carefully with silk, a habit already 

 noticed as occurring in Basilarchia, and the minute a meal is finished, 

 or the larva is disturbed, it travels back over its silken bridge and 

 takes up its position at the tip, invariably remaining upon the leaf 

 where it was born until after the first or second moult. How similarly 

 the larva of Limenitis sibylla acts, is to be gleaned from Breyer's obser- 

 vation (Ann. Soc. Ent. Belg., v., pp. 62-63) that the newly-hatched 

 caterpillar makes its first attack on the leaf, on one side of the tip, and 

 eats very moderately, so that the leaf on which it is born answers all 

 its needs till autumn, by which time the leaf is reduced to two small 

 flaps near the pedicel, which it fashions into its hybernaculum. 



One of the most remarkable features of the Limenitid larvae is nar- 

 rated at length by Edwards and Scudder. The former says : ' ' The larvae 

 of both Basilarchia arthemis and B. archippus (disippus) have a habit of 

 accumulating little scraps of leaf at the base and underside of the perch 

 or resting-place, till quite a packet is formed, and this is rolled back as 

 the substance of the leaf is eaten, so as always to be close to the cut 

 edge of the leaf. This edge, in narrow leaves, and at first in broader 

 ones, is kept nearly square by eating first on one and then on the 

 opposite side of the leaf. Occasionally a canal is eaten from the edge 



