16 



BRITISH BUTTERFLIES. 



again. If at any time the web is injured by storms, the caterpillars 

 forthwith set to work repairing it, and do not rest until the work is 

 done. Edwards thinks they have a prevision of storms, and observes 

 that, just before such, all hands may be seen working at their dwelling 

 industriously, strengthening it here and there, even when the sky is 



clear and there appears no reason for work In case of 



damage to the nest during a storm, it is at once repaired when sun- 

 shine returns. A few holes are left for ingress and egress. To this 

 nest they retire for the night and for moulting, feeding only by day, 

 when they extend their webs over new feeding- ground, although many 

 are found wandering beyond its protection. The first nests built are 



slight and quite transparent Each succeeding nest is 



more securely built, till finally, when the third moult approaches, the 

 web is often as large as a man's open hand, made of closely woven 

 silk, of more than one coat, and capable of resisting storms, and even 

 the wear and tear of winter. Edwards found one llins. by 4ins. at 

 its extremes. Within this more compact web the larvae pass their third 



moult, and in it remain hybernating with their cast off skins 



In the spring, all is changed ; the larvae forsake the web, and, though 

 still gregarious to a limited extent, wander ceaselessly about, swarming 

 over Lonieera and other plants, seeking only the concealment of dead 

 leaves and the under surface of sticks on the ground in their moultings 

 or during storms, but, at other times, always exposed to full view, 

 when their brilliant colour and active movements make them very 

 conspicuous ; nor do they seek protection by feeding at night, their 

 only sensitiveness to danger being shown by the readiness with which 



they coil up and drop to the ground Somehow, for 



pupation, they do not disperse widely, and several may sometimes be 

 found hanging on the same bush or fence-rail, and Edwards once had 

 half-a-dozen brought to him suspended from one button, like a string of 

 fish." Edwards further notes (Can. Ent., xvi., p. 114) that Euphydryas 

 chalcedon makes a web, in which it lives and hybernates, much like 

 that of E. phaeton ; but, according to the observations of Wright, it 

 varies the nature of its hybernation, according as the species lives in 

 the valleys or at high elevations in the mountains. In the valleys the 

 caterpillars go to ground to hybernate, whilst, in the mountains, they live 

 in the webs. Of another gregarious Melitaeid, Cinclidia harrisii, whose 

 larvae live on Aster umbellatus, Scudder notes (Butts. New Engl., p. 681) 

 that " eggs are apparently laid only in a single crowded layer, that the 

 young larvae first attack the apical half of the leaf on which they are 

 born, and then march in company to the summit of the plant, 

 beginning upon the tenderer leaves, and next move down the plant, 

 devouring the parenchyma of both surfaces as they go, and covering 

 everything with a thin web, beneath, and upon, which they live. 

 They continue to live in society while young, forming nests not very 

 unlike those of Euphydryas phaeton ; but these nests they desert before 

 winter, and probably hybernate in curled-up dead leaves, or beneath 



sticks and logs In the spring, they awaken early, and, 



although they do not properly seem to live in company at this season, 

 and spin no kind of web, they are rarely found alone, and generally 

 may be discovered in large numbers on Aster (Dollin</eria) umbellatus, 

 sometimes twenty may be seen upon a single stalk, and often four or five 

 upon the same leaf, etc." Yet another Melitaeid, Charidryas nycteis, is 



