A few days after the eggs are laid each hatches into a small
caterpillar that immediately begins feeding upon the green tissues
beside it--first, however, devouring the empty egg shell. It does not
eat the midrib of the leaf, but utilizes it as a perch, generally
winding it more or less with silken threads, apparently to make it
stronger and to prevent it from curling up. The caterpillar seems to
feed chiefly at night, resting quietly by day. After a week or so it
moults and then continues feeding as before. It continues to feed and
grow for several weeks, moulting regularly until it becomes full fed
as a caterpillar. It then spins a web of silk closely upon the bark of
twig or branch or possibly upon some other object near at hand. In
this web it entangles the hooked claws of its hind legs and hangs
downward preparatory to the change to the chrysalis. Soon afterward
the last larval skin is shed and the chrysalis hangs in place of the
caterpillar. This chrysalis has the characteristic form of all the
members of this limited group, the outer skin being well hardened and
there being a very prominent projection on the middle of the back.
The chrysalis hangs thus, buffeted more or less by wind and rain for
about ten days, then the skin breaks apart and the butterfly emerges.
Over a large part of its range there are two broods of this butterfly
each year. The adults appear in early summer and lay eggs which
develop into butterflies again during the latter part of summer. The
life-history of this generation is the one described in the last
paragraph. The eggs laid by these late summer butterflies, however,
require a somewhat different story. They hatch in the same way as the
others but when the caterpillars have moulted about twice they form a
winter case or hibernaculum, in exactly the same way as the
caterpillars of the Viceroy. They remain within these winter homes
till the following spring, when they come forth and complete their
development producing the early summer brood of butterflies with which
our story began.
=The Vicereine=
_Basilarchia floridensis_
In Florida and some of the other Southern states there is a butterfly
which looks almost like the Viceroy except that the brown coloring of
the wings is very much darker. The species has been called the
Vicereine as it is believed to mimic the Queen Butterfly, a species
closely related to the Monarch and occurring in the Southern states.
The Vicereine probably has a life-history very similar to that of its
northern cousin.
_Synopsis of the Sovereigns_
_Banded Purple_ (_Basilarchia arthemis_ or _Limenitis arthemis_).
Expanse 2 1/2 inches. Ground color of upper surface of wings black
with a distinct white band in bow-like form running across the middle
of both wings. A row of six tawny spots just outside the white band on
each hind wing and various sub-marginal blue spots outside of these.
Under surface tawny brown with the white stripe distinct and many
red-brown spots.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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