Vol. XXVli] ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. 2f>7 



Butterflies of a Mountain Park in Colorado (Lep.).* 



By E. L. REED, Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas, 



College Station, Texas. 



During the summers of 1914 and 1915 the writer made a 

 study; of the true butterflies of Boulder Park, Colorado, and 

 vicinity. The park is located forty-seven miles from Denver 

 on the Denver and Salt Lake Railroad and has an altitude 

 of 8989 feet. It is surrounded by mountains and is about two 

 and one-half miles long by one mile wide. The floor of the 

 park is composed mainly of dry grasslands and meadows 

 while the surrounding mountain sides are covered with pine 

 and spruce forests with occasional patches of aspens and 

 alders. South Boulder Creek flows in a winding course 

 through the park. Four gulches lead into it; South Boulder 

 Canyon and Mammoth Gulch at the upper end, Jenny Gulch 

 and Jenny Lind Gulch at the lower end. About the center of 

 the park is situated the village of Tolland. 



The altitude necessarily gives the park a cool summer 

 climate, scarcely three consecutive weeks passing without 

 frost ; ice is sometimes formed in mid-summer. The mean 

 July temperature is about 58 degrees Fahrenheit. The first 

 part of the summer season is usually without much rainfall 

 but the latter part has numerous showers. Throughout the 

 summer there is an abundance of flowers. 



The butterflies listed in this paper were collected in the park 

 and the gulches leading into it. Three families are repre- 

 sented by twenty-four genera and forty-three species. Twen- 

 ty-five of the species are exclusively montane and boreal 

 forms. The other species are lowland types that reach the 

 altitude of nine thousand feet or more. Twenty-six species 

 appear in relatively large numbers each year but the other 

 seventeen species are seldom abundant and one or more of 

 these may be entirely absent during any one season. Those 

 marked with an asterisk (*) are relatively abundant each year; 



"This is a part of the work done at the Mountain Laboratory at 

 Tolland, Colorado, in a course in the graduate school of the University 

 of Colorado. 



