LIMENITIS SIBYLLA. 41 



able to disclose something entirely new, but as de- 

 scribing exactly what I have seen. 



The hybernaculum which Mr. Barrett sent me was 

 placed as he describes it, " three or four buds down ' 

 from the tip of a twig shooting out from the main stalks 

 of a great honeysuckle-bine which climbed up a fir-tree ; 

 the twig chosen for this purpose sloped a little upwards, 

 but he could not discover any hybernaculum that could 

 fairly be called pendulous. 



The one I have before me 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 were 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 mid-rib for about one-tenth of an inch from the 

 tip — thus forming two little hare's-ears as 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 by the larva for its egress 

 in the spring. 



As the leaf withers, the hybernaculum assumes a 

 puckered fusiform shape, scarcely more than half an 

 inch in length, being convex on the upper outline, and 

 scarcely concave below, with the middle irregularly 

 swollen, and the little hare's-ears hanging apart ; but I 

 am sure, from the firmness with which the whole struc- 

 ture is fixed to the twig, it could not have swung with 

 an independent motion of its own. Its natural appear- 

 ance of a small shrivelled leaf clinging to the dry stem 

 would readily escape ordinary observation. 



On waking in April, sooner or later, according to 

 the season, the little occupant leaves its abode, but 

 goes no farther than to the upper side of the twig im- 

 mediately above the aperture it has quitted, and at this 

 time is about three lines long, spiny, and is wholly of a 

 reddish-brown colour. 



