LIBYTHEA. 
to the right or left by a corresponding movement of its head, whereby to attach 
its unsteady bridge to a neighboring line or leaf. 
When ready to transform, they spin buttons of red silk upon the side of a 
leaf, suspend themselves as do the Nymphalidce, and in about eight hours become 
chrysalids. The chrysalis is a beautiful object, of a delicate green, ornamented 
with yellow lines, and helmet-shaped. 
I have noticed another remarkable peculiarity in these larvae. On 30th Au¬ 
gust, I returned home after an absence of but three days, and found the leaves 
that I had placed in the glass with four larvae, which had just passed their third 
moult at my departure, dried up and all the larvae changed to chrysalids, thus 
crowding into less than three days changes which naturally require six. The 
chrysalids were not more than half the usual size, and the butterflies that came 
from them were small and pale colored. Twice also I inclosed larvae just after 
their third moult, in a tin box with fresh leaves, and forwarded by mail to Miss 
Peart, who was then near Philadelphia, expressly to secure a drawing at that 
stage, and before fourth moult, which should not occur till the fourth or fifth day 
after the third moult. But though the distance was only two days, in one case 
the larva on its arrival had fixed for chrysalis, and in the other had actually 
changed. Miss Peart wrote, on 1st August, that the larva mailed 29 th July had 
arrived 31 st, hut was in chrysalis, and from no want of food, as the leaves were 
fresh. I should apprehend, therefore, that in these cases the larvae had not 
passed the fourth moult, but had proceeded to chrysalis directly from the third. 
Apart from the difference in size, there is no mistaking the third moult for the 
fourth, from the peculiar markings assumed at this last. 
All the caterpillars of Baclimani observed in 1872 were green, and I should 
not then have credited a statement of variation in color. But of those fed in 
1873, several were marked more or less with black, in spots or bands. 
I am not aware of any other food-plant for this species than Celtis occidentalis. 
This tree is a favorite with many other larvae, especially of the Apciiuras, Celtis, 
and Clyton, and Grapta interrogations. G. comma will feed on the leaves in 
confinement, but unwillingly. 
