DISEASES OF THE COTTON PLANT. 223 
Gbeat American Frittellart. — {Agraulis vanillce.) 
The caterpillar of this butterfly is of a hght chestnut- 
brown color, with a dark, longitudinal stripe down each 
side, and is shaded with black below the spiracles. Tt 
measures about an inch and a half in length, and is covered 
with sharp, thorny spines ; two spines are also found upon 
the top of its somewhat square-shaped head. 
The chrysalis, which is shaded with brown and drab, is 
about an inch and a tenth in length, and hangs suspended 
by the tail from trees, shrubs, and fences. 
The butterfly measures from two inches and three- 
fourths to three inches and a fourth across the wings ; the 
upper sides of which are of a bright rich chestnut-brown, 
spotted and marked on the veins with black. The under- 
side is beautifally marked with large, metallic, silver spots. 
Ants. 
Whenever the plants are infested with cotton-lice 
[Aphides), myriads of small ants may be seen running 
hurriedly up and down the stems and leaves, or leisurely 
moving amongst the lice, quietly tapping first one and then 
another with their antennae, or feelers, and occasionally 
making a dead halt where they find a sufficiency of this 
insect food. Many planters suppose that these ants are 
the parents of the lice ; others again suspect them of 
destroying the aphis ; neither of which, however, is the 
case, as the ants merely visit the colonies of lice to devour 
the sweet, gummy substance that exudes from the tubercles 
on the bodies of the aphides, and which is commonly 
called " honey-dew," from the erroneous impression that it 
is formed in the atmosphere, and then deposited in the 
form of dew iipon the upper surface of leaves. This honey- 
