. The butterflies of North America. Butterflies; Butterflies. ADVERTISEM. I HAVE concluded to begin a third Volume of the " Butterflies of North America," and have made such arrangements that at least ten Plates may be expected to appear in each year. It may be found advisable to give sixty Plates instead of fifty, as in preceding Volumes, and probably three or four will contain figures of eggs exclusively, for I desire to make it clear at a glance that a natural genus is indicated quite as decidedly in the shape and ornamentation of the e^' as in the imago. The drawings on stone wil
. The butterflies of North America. Butterflies; Butterflies. ADVERTISEM. I HAVE concluded to begin a third Volume of the " Butterflies of North America," and have made such arrangements that at least ten Plates may be expected to appear in each year. It may be found advisable to give sixty Plates instead of fifty, as in preceding Volumes, and probably three or four will contain figures of eggs exclusively, for I desire to make it clear at a glance that a natural genus is indicated quite as decidedly in the shape and ornamentation of the e^' as in the imago. The drawings on stone will be made under the supervision of Mrs. Mary Peart, and the preparatory stages of the species treated will be illus- trated more fully, if anything, than in Vol. 11. Some surprise has been expressed that Vol. II. should have been so great an advance on Vol. I. in the matter of these early stages ; but the explanation is simple. When Vol. I. was undertaken, in 1868, nothing was known by myself or any one else, of eggs, larv£e,.or chrysalids, except of the more common butterflies. As an egg or larva could but rarely be traced back to a particular female, it was impossible that much knowledge could be gained of the life histories. Scarcely any advance in this respect had been made, in fact, since the time of Abbot, about 1800, and I said as much in the Advertisement which appeared with Part I. Abbot represented nothing but the mature larva and pupa. His larvre, as I have been told by Mr. Titian Peale, who knew him at Savannah, were brought in by boys, white and black, and generally what they were was made known when the butterflies came from chrysalis. But in 1870 I discovered an infallible way to obtain eggs from the female of any species of butterfly, namely, by confining her with the growing food-plant. If the eggs are mature they will be laid. The first experiment was made with Papilio Ajax, and seasonal tri-morphism established. Three described species of Papilio then and th
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, booksubjectbutterf, bookyear1884
