PAPILIO III. 
/S 
Many eggs are destroyed by insects and spiders. There is a minute scarlet 
spider scarcely larger than the egg itself, that mounts upon it and from a punc- 
ture extracts the contents. I frequently met the shells so despoiled before I dis- 
covered the cause and have since observed the marauder in its operations. I have 
also lost in a single night, owing as I supposed to crickets, numbers of eggs laid in 
confinement. 
The larvae, in every stage of growth, are to be found resting on the surfaces of 
the leaves and one would suppose they must be nearly exterminated by birds. But 
like all Papilio larvae, they emit from the head, at the same time that they project a 
Y shaped tentacle, a peculiarly acrid and sickening odor which must effectually pro- 
tect them. I have however seen spiders feeding upon them, attacking even the 
head, and they have other enemies among the insects. They are very little troub- 
led by ichneumon-flies in this valley, and I have rarely lost a chrysalis from that 
cause. Consequently no Papilio is so abundant here throughout the season. I 
find on breeding them that a considerable percentage of the eggs do not hatch, and 
that more or less of the larvae die at every moult, as well as in the effort to 
change to chrysalids. Multitudes of chrysalids must be destroyed in the winter by 
birds and mice as they are but imperfectly concealed under stones and roots or 
even among the stems of the grasses. So that of the tens of thousands of eggs 
that are annually deposited but a very small proportion produce butterflies. 
I am now clearly of the opinion that the number of each sex in any species of 
butterfly is about equal. On counting the Ajax that have emerged from chry- 
salis the last two seasons, I find 78 $, 83 ?, and with the Interrogationis, Comma , 
and other species I find about the same proportion. The scarcity of the females 
noticed by all collectors is owing to their frequenting different localities from the 
males. 
With regard to obtaining the eggs of any species of butterfly, after two seasons 
experience, I find not the least difficulty, provided the food plant be known. If, 
on being confined with this, they do not immediately proceed to deposit their eggs, 
it is because these are not matured. I have repeatedly failed with the large Ar- 
gynnides until the month of September, and then have obtained hundreds of eggs. 
The larvae of Argynnis are the only ones however I have been unable to rear, 
and so far I have failed in every instance, though with Euptoieta Columbina , 
closely allied on one side, and the Yanessans on the other, I have had no difficulty 
whatever. 
