Published online by Cambridge University Press: 31 May 2012
I have had upwards of 500 examples of the species before me in making these comparisons, most of them bred, but many taken in the field during several years past, since my attention has been attracted to the variation manifested. Many others I have brought together from localities as far apart as those mentioned. And I can well corroborate the words of Drury, applied to tharos, now more than an hundred years ago: “In short, Nature forms such a variety of this species that it is difficult to set bounds, or to know all that belongs to it.”
* Note.—As the publication of this paper has been delayed, I am able to say now (March 24th), that the hybernating larvæ spoken of have gone through their larval changes and are now in chrysalis, II of them. These all had passed 3 moults last fall, and have passed 2 since hybernation ended. As will be seen below, the coloration at both these moults differed in several respects from the summer coloration. I did not succeed in bringing alive through the winter any of those larvæ which hybernated after 2nd fall moult, but of those which pased 3rd in the fall, the larger part were living when I placed them in the greenhouse, 7th Feb'y.