THE ALDERMAN BUTTERFLY. 



9 



dioica), on which it is laid by the mother butterfly, and therefore 

 easily overlooked. 



Although I had found, for many years successively, and in consider- 

 able numbers, the caterpillars and the butterflies of this species, I 

 was long unsuccessful in procuring any of the eggs ; but at last I 

 succeeded, having found one on the 6th of July, at the very moment 

 the mother butterfly had laid it, and it hatched as well as any other of 

 this class. I found others afterwards, which had perhaps been longer 

 deposited, and they likewise hatched, and I reared butterflies from 

 them ; so that now I know their whole manner of life, and their several 

 transformations, and am enabled to detail these to the reader from my 

 own observation. 



As soon as the infant caterpillar is hatched, it begins to eat directly, 

 and to look out for a place to live in. Providence has given it the 

 faculty of spinning certain threads; and, after selecting a leaf, it draws it 

 together, by means of these, into a roundish hollow form, leaving for 

 the most part an opening into the interior before and behind. The 

 leaf, when thus drawn together, serves as a house or tent for the little 

 creature, and at the same time furnishes it with food ; and hence the 

 longer it lives in it the more perforated it becomes. When at length, 

 it has gnawed so much of the leaf as renders it so full of holes that it 

 becomes useless, the caterpillar quits it, and goes to another leaf, pro- 

 ceeding in the same way as it did with the first. Accordingly, when 

 we are desirous of finding these caterpillars, we must search for them 

 on those nettle leaves which are drawn together. I may mention, how- 

 ever, that not more than one caterpillar will be found on a single leaf. 



The circumstance of hiding within a folded leaf, is not usual with 

 every spiny caterpillar ; and it appears to me, that this species does so, 

 more from a peculiar liking to live solitary than from any fear of dan- 

 ger, inasmuch as they are exposed to no more danger or hardship 

 than other spiny caterpillars, which roam about freely and openly on 

 the leaves. This species, besides, is quite as hardy as the others, with 

 respect to enduring cold and heat ; and they are as much persecuted by 

 parasite flies {Ichneumonidat)^ which lay eggs in their bodies, as are 

 other spiny caterpillars ; nor is their dwelling in the folded leaf so se- 

 curely constructed, as to prevent the intrusion of such unwelcome 

 visiters*, a circumstance always attended with a mortal result. 



* I have elsewhere mentioned an instance which fell under my own observation, of 

 a parasite fly thrusting its eggs through a folded leaf into the body of an insect within. — 

 Insect Architecture, p. 174.. Editor. 



