HABITS OF OUK. LEPIDOPTEEOTJS INSECTS. 
223 
have become extinct in Britain. One of these, the large copper, 
has become extinct altogether, as it was an exclusively British 
insect. It disappeared about fifty years ago, when Whittlesea 
Mere was drained. 
Our moths number over 2,000 species. 
So much for general remarks upon the Lepidoptera. How I will 
describe some of the habits of the butterflies, which will be 
sufficient for one paper. 
The butterflies—like all insects—pass through the four stages 
of (1) egg or ovum, (2) caterpillar or larva, (3) chrysalis or pupa, 
(4) perfect insect or imago. In the egg and chrysalis states they 
are quiescent, and the only things to note about them are the 
positions in which they are found, which depends as to the eggs 
upon the habits of the female of the perfect insect, and as to the 
chrysalis upon the habits of the caterpillar. 
One curious habit of many of the larvae is that they make their 
first meal upon the shell of the egg from which they have just 
emerged. Most larvae, when they begin to feed on their proper 
food-plant, grow rapidly, especially those which hatch out in 
Spring or Summer. As they grow they change their skin, and 
the number of moultings is usually four or five. Many larvae are 
different in colour and markings with each moult. The larva stage 
is, of course, that of feeding and growth, and it can be well under¬ 
stood that a caterpillar grows fast when I tell you that it will 
usually eat about fourteen times its own weight of food in a day. 
When full fed it changes into a pupa, and the manner of effecting 
this change varies. In the genera Papilio and Pier is, which are 
represented in our British insects by the swallow-tail, and whites, 
orange-tip, clouded yellows, and brimstone butterflies, the larvae 
spin a little silken girdle to the stem of the food-plant (usually), 
then fasten the tail to the same stem a little lower down, put the 
head through the little girdle, and change to a pupa with the head 
upwards, the body being supported by the girdle. But by far the 
most usual position of butterfly pupae is suspended by the tail, head 
downwards. The larvae of all the Vanessce and fritillaries change 
to a pupa in this position. 
Most larvae feed solitarily, but many are gregarious, and some 
spin a web in which they all live and feed together, moving to 
another branch and spinning a fresh web when they have stripped 
the first of its leaves. Among the butterflies in several species of 
the genus Vanessa the larvae are gregarious; for instance the 
peacock, both the tortoise-shells, the Camberwell beauty, and the 
comma, but the painted lady and red admiral are exceptions to 
this rule. 
There is one very curious habit of the larvae of the peacock 
butterfly. They are black and covered with spines, and I daresay 
many of you have seen them feeding gregariously covered with 
a considerable web on the tops of stinging-nettles, but when full 
fed the larvae scatter, and where they go to is not known. One 
day a bunch of nettles may be seen covered with them, and the 
