224 
A. COTTAM-NOTES ON THE HABITS 
next day they will have all disappeared. Yon will not be able to 
find one anywhere, and where they pupate is hardly known. In 
confinement, when they cannot get away, they pupate hanging 
to the underside of the stems of their food. 
The hairstreaks {Thecla) mostly change to a pupa suspended by 
the tail and a silken girth to the underside of a leaf of their food- 
plant, or rather tree, for most of them are tree-feeders. The 
purple hairstreak {T. quercus) pupates, unlike the rest of the 
genus, underground, unattached and without a cocoon. The green 
hairstreak {T. rubi) pupates on the surface of the ground amongst 
the roots of the broom, its food-plant. One of the satyrs, the 
grayling {Satyrus semele ), pupates in a slight cocoon just below 
the surface of the ground. 
Although not an invariable rule, it is frequently the case that 
the larvae of the species forming a genus all feed on the plants 
belonging to some particular order or genus. For instance, our 
Pieridae all feed on plants of the order Cruciferae ; the Lycaenidae 
(the blues and the coppers) almost all feed on Leguminosae; the 
species of Argynnis (the fritillaries) all feed on various species of 
Viola; and the Satyridse (the meadow-browns, heaths, etc.) feed 
on various grasses. The Hesperidae (skippers) feed between leaves 
of their food-plants, which they fasten together with silk, the larvae 
usually changing to pupae in these little domiciles. 
The habits of the butterflies in the matter of hybernation are 
very curious. One would hardly think that a soft, fleshy, and 
usually ravenous creature like a caterpillar would be able to live 
through a severe Winter, and yet it is the fact that a larger 
number of our butterflies pass the Winter in the larval state than 
in any other. A few hybernate in the egg state, some as pupae, 
and a good many in the perfect state. The swallow-tail and the 
white butterflies hybernate as pupae. Some of the satyrs do the 
same, and some of them partly as larvae and partly as pupae. The 
brimstone butterfly {Gonepteryx rhamni ) and all the Vanessa 
hybernate in the perfect state, the brimstone among dead leaves 
at the foot of trees. The underside has a wonderful likeness to 
the leaf of a lime-tree. The Vanessa hybernate in hollow trees, 
and often in houses and other buildings. It is not an uncommon 
thing to see a small tortoise-shell butterfly sitting in the corner 
of a bedroom near the ceiling all the Winter. 
The hairstreaks remain in the egg state during the Winter, and 
the high brown fritillary does the same, but the other fritillaries 
all hybernate in the larval state. So do most of the blues. The 
hybernation of the Bedford blue, our smallest butterfly, is very 
curious. The larva, which is hatched at the beginning of July, 
feeds through that month ; it then retires to the underside of some 
neighbouring object and remains there without change during the 
rest of the Summer, the Autumn, and the Winter, and changes 
into a pupa in May. It therefore remains in the larval state for 
ten months, and during nine of them is in a dormant condition. 
The larvae of the fritillaries usually retire into their hybernacula 
