NYMPHALIDiE. 
269 
In the genus Vanessa the insects are of medium size, and their 
wings are notched or somewhat angular in outline. They inhabit 
the temperate regions of the earth and are strong and hardy butter¬ 
flies, frequently withstanding the rigors of a semi-arctic winter in a 
torpid state and reappearing the first warm days among the earlier 
harbingers of spring. 
The Vanessa antiopa is one of our commonest and best known 
butterflies, and, from the ease with which the larvae are gathered and 
reared, it is one of the first insects with which the beginner is likely 
to become acquainted in all its stages. 
The butterflies, very worn and faded, make their appearance early 
in the spring, coming out from their winter quarters, where they 
have hibernated among heaps of stones, beneath the loosened bark of 
decayed trees, etc., frequently before the snow has left the ground in 
the forests. 
The females lay their eggs in clusters on the twigs of the poplar, 
elm and willow and on hatching out the dark colored, spiny larvse 
live a gregarious existence until they are full grown, when they 
separate and, descending the tree on which they have lived, suspend 
themselves by the posterior legs to a mat of silk spun beneath the 
projecting point of a rock in a stone wall, or under the top board of 
some fence, to await their transformation to the chrysalis state. 
These larvae frequently damage the shade-trees in our suburban 
towns to no small extent. 
The larva when fully grown is dark brown in color with a row of 
red spots running down the middle of the back. It is covered with 
formidable branching spines, and the caterpillars are often clustered 
together on a branch in such a mass as to make it bend down with 
their weight. One will often see the sidewalks sprinkled with their 
droppings, the branches overhead being stripped of their leaves by 
these insects. 
The chrysalis is angular and spiny, of a brown or purple brown 
color, with rows of reddish colored tubercles on the back of the 
abdomen. 
If one wishes to watch the transformation from larva to chrysalis 
and from chrysalis to butterfly, there is no insect, to my knowledge, 
where the whole process is so easily studied. The caterpillars may 
be procured by the hundred when nearly full grown, and by putting 
them in a roomy box with a few handfuls of fresh leaves one will 
have the satisfaction of seeing them attach themselves to the cover 
