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ON THE LENGTH OF LIFE OF BUTTERFLIES
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 31 May 2012
Extract
Not long since I received a letter from a correspondent in Europe, asking what my experience was in regard to the life of butterflies, and this led to much thinking of the matter and reference to my note books, in which for more than fifteen years I have put down everything that has come under my observation relating to butterflies.
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- Copyright © Entomological Society of Canada 1881
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* I have again and again noticed in many species of butterflies, where a pair have been taken in copulation, that the male wi11 in most cases show signs of considerable age, while the female is evidently either just from chrysalis or quite recently. Boisduval, Spec. Gen., 1, p. 28, says: “In some instances two or three days elapse between chrysalis and pairing, but only when the sexes cannot come together sooner.” But of the hibernators the same author says of the Vanessidæ, all which in temperate regions at least hibernete in the imago: “Their pairing does not take plece till seven or eight months after the emergence of the insect.” Of my own experience I hnow nothing as to this.
* To show how readily Archippus lays its eggs in confinement, on 19th August, 1879, I tied a female over Asclepias, and within 24 hours had gotten 82 eggs. This also shows that the eggs mature for deposition, not singiy, but en masse. Fourteen days later the larvæ from these eggs were pupating.