Vol. Xxiii] ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS 473 



A Tropical Butterfly in New Hampshire. 



MY DEAR DOCTOR SKINNER Will you be kind enough to tell me 

 the name of a butterfly which alighted on the knee of a young woman 

 at Intervale, New Hampshire? "It was about 4^/2 inches in expanse, 

 of the bright, metallic blue seen in some of Denton's exhibited butter- 

 flies, with no markings on the blue, but a bright golden yellow edge 

 around the four wings. The yellow edge had some small marks on 

 it." It had no tails. 



The person who saw this said that she never saw one like it be- 

 fore and her sister corroborates all the statements of color, etc. It 

 seems to me an escape from some one's cage of chrysalids, or a 

 tropical butterfly far astray. 



The person is a rather more accurate observer than most non-en- 

 tomological women, and is really desirous of knowing what her "vis- 

 ion of beauty" was. We both shall be grateful if you can tell us 

 from this description. CAROLINE GRAY SOULE. 



May have been Caligo atreus or uranus from Central America, 

 brought in chrysalis stage on a fruit steamer. H. S. 



On Labeling Specimens. A Suggestion. 



ON labeling specimens. A suggestion. 1 When a specimen is cor- 

 rectly named and placed in its proper position in the cabinet, or a new 

 species described and duly named, that act is only a preliminary and 

 comparatively unimportant proceeding; the name is the handle by 

 which we will further study and communicate the results of such 

 study of the species, in all the various relations of its natural history, 

 economy, internal and external anatomy, distribution, etc. To do this 

 further work we need a good knowledge of the environment of a spe- 

 cies on which to base our studies ; so we have the locality label. Very 

 often this label is vague, inaccurate or indefinite, taken from a local 

 or railroad map, the collector having the idea that the specimen and 

 its taxonomy is the chief end of his endeavors. Some standard should 

 be used, understood by everyone, and the only standards which are 

 permanent and accurate are the topographic maps, termed quadrangles, 

 being prepared by the U. S. Geological Survey. These sheets, about 

 17/4 x 15 inches, include an area of 20 or 25 square miles, I mile to an 

 inch, and more than one-quarter of this country has been thus mapped. 

 The relief is shown by contour lines, so one can obtain at a glance the 

 topography of the region. The name of the sheet is desipnated by 

 the name of the principal town or some prominent natural feature, as : 

 Watkins Glen Quadrangle, N. Y., or Tejon Quadrangle, Calif. So 

 with a printed locality label for the particular quadrangle, with the 

 date, collector, and exact locality indicated by a town, canon, peak, 

 river, boundary lines, etc. on the specimen, a student can turn to the 

 particular atlas sheet (which sheets are very convenient and beautiful 



