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1954
The Lepidopterists' News
101
FIELD AND TECHNIQUE NOTES
SOME HOST PLANT RECORDS DERIVED FROM REARING EXPERIMENTS
In attempts to induce Strymon melinus Hbn. to oviposit in captivity I tried all the host plants (Rubus, Crataegus, Malvus, and Humulus) given in JONES' Check List of B.C. Macrolepidoptera, except Humulus which is not obtainable here. A single egg was laid on fruit of raspberry, which was lost due to the berry rotting before it hatched.
I finally decided to watch unconfined butterflies for clues. I would have saved much trouble by trying this sooner. After a few minutes' watching I had observed two females of S. melinus ovipositing in the flowers of small wild clovers. The ova were pushed well into the corollas of the flowers. In the keys of Henry's Flora of B.C. the plants run to Trifolium oliganthum Steud. and T. tridentatum Lindl. When captive S. melinus females were tried with these plants they oviposited freely.
The larvae are inveterate cannibals, so I did not rear very many. When not eating their companions, they ate only the flowers or seed pods of the clover, never the leaves.
Mitoura nelsoni Edw. is never a common butterfly here, and I always hesitate to use good specimens in the breeding cages. One damaged, but seemingly fairly fresh, female taken at Wellington, I tried on every conifer locally obtainable, but without success. Later I brought a worn female from Cameron Lake. Having tried this one for a time with Pinus and Picea without success, I put in a twig of Thuja plicata Donn. On this the butterfly soon deposited three ova. Two of these hatched. One larva soon disappeared; I suspect cannibalism again. The remaining caterpillar I successfully brought to pupation on a diet of T. plicala.
From frequent watching of the insect, I had long been convinced in my own mind, that in this locality Lyc&nopsis pseudargiolus echo Edw. feeds chiefly on Spir&a discolor Pursh. I first put the theory to test in 1952. The butterflies oviposited on 5. discolor flowers, but the young larvae were lost due to the flowers dying and falling off. Cut Spir&a flowers are difficult to keep fresh. The following year I achieved success by carefully moving the ova onto fresh flowers. As is frequently the case with Lycaenidae, the larva? feed on the flowers mainly, but with this species I did not notice any cannibalism.
As often happens with Arctiidae, Diacrisia pteridis rubra Neum. oviposited without waiting to be supplied with the correct host plant. I tried Pteris aquilina L. and Plantago lanceolata L. Some of the small larvae commenced feeding on the ferns, but in a few days all had transferred themselves to the plantain leaves. On this diet I reared them with very little mortality.
Newly hatched larvae of Lacinipolia comis Grt. were supplied with leaves of cultivated clover, and commenced at once to feed on these. Since this is a common species, and I was at the moment concerned with rarer things, I pushed fresh clover leaves on top of the old, and hoped the larvae would transfer themselves. On examining them a few days later, I found them still feeding happily on the old leaves, which were now nearly black. I would likely have taken the trouble to move them, if I had not noticed in JONES' List, under Lacinipola pensilis Grt. "Larva feeds on dead leaves, according to Dyar". Species of the same genus might have similar habits, so I left the L. comis larvae alone. They thrived all summer on a diet of dead or half dry clover leaves and went into hibernation apparently in good health.
RICHARD GUPPY, Wellington, V.I., B.C., CANADA