FAMILY HABITS OF BUTTERFLY LARV3E THE PIERIDS. 53 



The larvae of the Anthocarids appear, in their general habits, to 

 fall with the Pontiid group of Pierids. Edwards points out, so 

 striking is the resemblance between the larva? of the two Nearctic 

 species, Pontia protodice and Anthocaris ausonides, in colour, 

 form, and markings, that they more closely resemble each other than 

 often happens between the larvae of the same species ; the pupa 

 of each, however, is characteristic of its own group. The Anthocarid 

 larvae agree with those of the Pontiids in the solitariness of their 

 larval life, in the purely summer-feeding habits, and to some extent 

 in the development of "forwards," though it is to be noted that 

 the species of Euchlo'e, although possessing purely summer-feeding 

 larvae, appear, even in the most southern latitudes, to resist any 

 attempt to produce "forwards." The differences between the habits 

 of the larvae of the Pierids and Anthocarids, in other ways, is some- 

 what marked. The Pierids proper eat ravenously to repletion, and 

 rest almost exactly where they have fed, trusting to their general 

 similarity to their surroundings, or, possibly, in the case of Pieris 

 brassicae, to their warning colours and objectionable taste, for 

 protection. The Anthocarid larvae, on the other hand, are more 

 delicaie in their feeding-habit, choosing foodplants of long and 

 slender habit, and, after a meal, are particularly expert in choosing 

 a resting-place, so that they are most difficult to find, and appear to 

 rely on their habitual quietude during the day for safety. Green in 

 colour, stretched along a stem of foodplant, with the head and anus 

 considerably attenuated, the longitudinal pale lines with which the 

 ground colour is marked, make the larvae most difficult to be seen, 

 except by special search, their delicately-striped green bodies closely 

 resembling various parts — stems, leaves, seedpods, etc. — of their 

 foodplants, and the larva of Anthocaris belia is thus easily overlooked. 

 The larvae of the Nearctic A. ausonides feed on the flowers and seed- 

 vessels of a Cruciferous plant, and, just as is the case with A. belia, 

 they are solitary, and lie stretched at length on the stem or seed-pods 

 of the plant. 



Exceedingly similar to these. are the larvae of Euchlo'e, or "orange- 

 tips," which, also, flower- and fruit- rather than leaf-feeders, love to 

 lie stretched along the long seed-pods of the Cruciferous plants they 

 haunt. As Scudder notes (op. cit., ii., p. 1144) : " The long and slender 

 form of this (the Euchlo'e) larva, with its striking longitudinal sti'ipes, 

 would seem to render it a conspicuous object, but, if seen upon the lank 

 vegetation upon which it feeds, lying beside the long-drawn seed-pods, 

 it would hardly be noticed." All lepidopterists who have collected 

 the larvae of Euchlo'e euphenoides from Biscutella laevigata, or 

 those of Euchlo'e cardamines from Sinapis arvensis, Cardamine 

 pratensis, Sisymbrium officinale, horse-radish, garden-rocket, etc., 

 will know how true this statement, evidently based on Scudder's 

 knowledge of the larva of Euchlo'e c/enutia, is. Of the larva of the 

 latter, Edwards says : " The young larva feeds on the flowers and buds 

 of Arabis perfoliate, Barbarea vulr/aris, etc., and, as these pass away, on 

 the seed-pods, usually beginning at the end of the long slender pod, 

 and eating towards the stem." This is equally true of the larvae of 

 E. euphenoides and E. cardamines. The larva of E. cardamines, on any 

 of its foodplants, is not at all easy to discover at a casual glance, 

 appearing something like a thickening of the stem, an irregular 



