454 



The Moths and Butterflies 



known as hop-merchants. If the spots are golden, hops are to bring high 

 prices; if silvery, low prices! The violet-tip, P. interrogationis, is another 

 common eastern angle-wing and has on the under side of the hind wings a 

 double silver spot a little like a question-mark but more like a semicolon. 



FlG. 643. The larva of the violet-tipped butterfly, Polygonia interrogationis, making its 

 last moult, i.e., pupating. (Photograph from life by author; slightly enlarged.) 



Its chestnut-colored, pale-spotted, spiny larva feeds on hops, elms, and 

 linden. Fig. 643 shows a caterpillar just pupating, and Fig. 644 shows 

 the formed chrysalid. There are eight other species of Polygonia in the 

 United States. 



The Vanessas are among the best known of our butterflies. Three 

 species, V. atalanta (PL X, Fig. 2), the red admiral, V. huntera, the painted 

 beauty, and V. cardui, the thistle-butterfly, are found all over the United 

 States, and in addition a fourth, V. carycB, the west-coast lady, occurs on the 

 Pacific coast. The latter three species are but little like atalanta, having 

 the wings blackish brown, plentifully and irregularly marked with orange 

 and whitish; underneath there are true eye-spots; huntera may be dis- 

 tinguished from cardui by having but two complete eye-spots instead of 

 several, and caryce differs from cardui by the absence of the rosy tint peculiar 

 to that species, the tawnier ground-color of the upper surfaces, and the com- 

 plete black band which crosses the discal cell of the fore wings. Atalanta 



