122 Habits of Butterflies. [February, 



HABITS OF BUTTERFLIES. 1 



I. On certain habits of I/r/i, uia charitonia Linn., a species of 

 butterfly found in Florida. — According to Wallace and Bates 

 all species of Heliconidae have so obnoxious a smell and taste by- 

 reason of the pungent odor which seems to pervade their systems, 

 that birds will not touch them, though their flight is so early and 

 their abundance so great all through the tropics, that they could 

 be caught more easily than most other butterflies. So lizards 

 and monkeys refuse them. 



Hcliconia charitonia is common at Indian river, being a forest 

 species, and Dr. Win. Wittfield observed three of these butterflies 

 fixed upon a chrysalis of the same species in the forest last May. 

 He watched them off and on for two days, and tried to drive 

 them away, picking them off with the fingers, but they returned 

 to the same position, and remained there till the morning of the 

 third day, when he found all gone, and the empty shell of the 

 chrysalis only remaining. 



This led him to raise another chrysalis, which he placed in a 

 flower bed frequented by II. charitonia. Soon some butterflies 

 came and touched the chrysalis, but its wriggling caused them to 

 move off. Two days before the imago was due, and before dis- 

 coloration of the shell of the chrysalis had commenced, they at- 

 tached themselves again, two or three at a time, and as before, 

 would only yield to force, and then returned. On the third day 

 all had gone and the empty shell remained. Query: Did the 

 butterflies, aware of their own immunity from persecution, 

 gather for the purpose of guarding the chrysalis from attacks of 

 birds or other enemies, just at the time when it was most defence- 

 less ; or were they attracted by sexual desire, the imago perhaps 

 being of the opposite sex to the butterflies gathered upon it ?" 



II. On an alleged ah/ \n the history of Argynnis 



myrina. — Mr. Scudder, in the American Naturalist, 1872, re- 

 lated " The Curious History of a Butterfly," and stated that in 

 both A. myrina and bellona occurred a phenomenon which he 

 considered unique among butterflies; there being two sets of in- 

 dividuals, each following its own cycle of changes, apparently 

 with as little to do with the other set as if it were a different spe- 



