There is not in the whole group of caterpilrars a more innocent and harmless-looking object than the larva of Lagoa opercularis–especially just previous to the fourth moult. As it reposes curled upon a leaf, with its long, wavy, white silken hairs the sport of the slightest zephyr, it resembles nothing so much as a tuft of the finest white cotton, and seems almost to invite the touch of caressing fingers.

Last year I observed a female comyntas depositing eggs upon Desmodium Marilandicum Gray, a common and troublesome weed in this region, called “shoestring” by the country People, from its toughness of stem,and bearing a sticking burr in the fall. On 9th July, 1876, I set a female in a bag over a stem of this plant, and several eggs were laid on the tender tenlinal leaves. Mr. Mead noticed that this butterfly laid also on red clover, and a number of eggs were obtained by the same process, on the 13th July, deposited on the young leaves and on the flowrets of the head.

Mr. W. H. Edwards, in his article on Argynnis myrina, published on page 189 of Vol. vii, of the Canadian Entomololgist, says that in all the species of butterflies which he has made observations on, except Apatura clyton, the females emerge as early as the males, and in the course of the same article he mentions having “bred from the egg four of our larger species of Argynnis, viz., diana, cybele, aphrodite and idalia.”