1984] 
Rutowski — Pieris protodice 
147 
The conditions under which these females were kept in the 
laboratory were admittedly highly artificial and restricted the fe- 
males’s movements. As a result oviposition behavior was erratic but 
several major trends were apparent. No female oviposited before 
day two after copulation. Hence, depletion of the secretions begins 
at the same time as the production of eggs. The maximum number 
of eggs produced by any female was 114. The number of eggs 
produced was not significantly positively correlated with the num- 
ber of days since copulation (r= 0.306, n=25, p=0.07). No female 
laid infertile eggs regardless of time since mating and number of 
eggs laid. 
Observations on field-caught females 
Seventy-three females were collected in the field during this study 
for examination of the contents of their reproductive tracts. Of these 
only one was a virgin, 56 carried one spermatophore, and 15 carried 
two spermatophores meaning they had mated twice. The likelihood 
of a female mating twice increased with age as indicated by wing 
wear. Of 30 fresh females 10% were twice mated while of 41 females 
that showed noticeable wing wear 29% were twice mated x 2 = 3.86, 2 
df, p<0.05). In 9 of the twice mated females it was evident that the 
female only remated when the spermatophore from the first mating 
was in a greatly depleted state. In these females, the spermatophore 
furthest from the entrace to the bursa copulatrix was collapsed and 
clear in color while the other had its neck or collum extending into 
the ductus bursa and was full, white, and round. 
Discussion 
Production of secretions by males 
Males of P. protodice pass on average 7-8% of their body mass at 
a single copulation. This figure is in the range of values observed in 
a variety of butterflies by Rutowski et al. (1983). Moreover, the 
courtship behavior of Pieris protodice follows the basic pattern 
observed in other butterflies: the male approaches the female, the 
female alights, the male buffets the female briefly with his wings, the 
male alights and couples with the female (Rutowski, 1979a). These 
data support the hypothesis of Rutowski et al. (1983) that a lack of 
interspecific diversity in the overall complexity of butterfly court- 
ship behavior is paralleled by a lack of variation between species in 
the proportion of male body mass passed at copulation. 
