CURIOUS BEHAVIOUR OF EUDAMUS PYLADES LARVA

Extract

When out on a short visit to Ausable Chasm, June 29th to July 1st, I noticed, on June 30th, a female of this species ovipositing, and secured three eggs. These eggs hatched in due course, one about a day in advance of the two others. The first larva was placed on a clover leaf in a tin-topped jelly glass, but refused to feed and dried up. I then arranged a homeopathic vial of water in a wine glass, with earth to steady it, and a few leaves of clover passing through a hole in the cork into the water, and placed the two other newly hatched larvæ upon the leaves. One immediately set to work constructing its nest, but the other seemed lazy and not inclined to make a nest for itselt or share in the construction of the other. The nest was soon complete, and the occupants hidden from view. What tragedy took place within that nest I know not, but at the first moult only one caterpillar remained, and I thought that possibly the energetic one had lost all patience with his lazy brother, and had eaten him up. The dates of the first three moults were not recorded, but the fourth one occurred on 3rd of August.