50 BKITISH BUTTERFLIES. 



allied genera, in being particularly active and lively, travelling 

 much over their foodplant, a provision it is suggested that enables 

 them possibly to escape the inundations to which their marshy 

 habitat is liable (Buckler, Larvae, etc., vol. i., p. 35). 



CHAPTEK VIII. 



FAMILY HABITS IN BUTTERFLY LARVAE THE PIERIDS. 



Just as the family habits of larvae have been shown to be exceed- 

 ingly diverse in the typical sections of the Nymphalids, as represented 

 by the Vanessids, Argynnids, Brenthids, Melitaeids, Limenitids, 

 Apaturids, and Satyrids, so an almost equal dissimilarity is to be 

 found in the larval habits of the Pierids, when one compares those of 

 the Aporiids, the Pierids, the Pontiids, the Anthocarids, the Coliads, 

 and the Gonepterygids. 



The larvae of the Aporiids, as represented by Aporia crataegi, Eucheira 

 socialis, and Delias harpalyce, are remarkable in having strongly-developed 

 social or gregarious habits from the time they hatch. Of these, the 

 first-named has them developed in the weakest form. Spinning a web as 

 soon as hatched, the larvae increase it as they get older, using it not 

 only as an aid to obtain a safer footing, but retiring therein to shelter, 

 and to rest after a meal has been taken ; they enclose themselves 

 therein for the winter, and, for some time after hybernation, they 

 still live together, but, later, they spread out, leading henceforth a 

 more or less solitary life, although still spinning a large quantity 

 of silk in order to obtain a safe footing on the glabrous leaves and 

 stems of their foodplants. Aporia hippia is also said to hybernate 

 gregariously in a somewhat solid common web. Delias harpalyce, 

 an Australian species, is similarly gregarious, but the larvae con- 

 tinue to spin more and more web until maturity, when they 

 attach themselves thereto for pupation. Eucheira socialis, a Mexican 

 species, carries the gregarious habit to its farthest limit, forming a 

 retreat in times of danger and for rest, and, finally, when fullfed, 

 pupating therein, the pupae hanging, Nymphalid-like, from the inside 

 of the nest by their tails, and without the aid of the girth found in 

 the other Pierid groups. Bingham, on the authority of Davidson and 

 Aitken, says that the larvae of the Indian Delias eucharis are also 

 gregarious, and remain so to the end of larval life, the pupae also being 

 found in close proximity. Moore also notes the larvae of Belenois 

 mesentina as being gregarious throughout life, whilst those of Appias 

 hippoides, Teracolus amatus, and others, are also noted, but without 

 detail, as having social habits. 



The larvae of the Pierids (sens, rest.) themselves are very different 

 from the Aporiids in their habits. Mostly solitary in their mode of 

 life, they yet show, in some species, a tendency to gregariousness, 

 although in no species to the degree exhibited by the larvae of the 

 Aporiids. This is shown most markedly in Pieris brassicae, much less 

 so in P. rapae, but, in almost all the other species, the larvae live solitary 

 lives, none of them, even in the more social species, spinning 

 a web, except for a safer footing. The larvae of P. chieranthi 



