128 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



wanting in the more primitive, being apparently a modern improvement 

 adapted to some purpose of mechanical utility and developed only at an 

 advanced stage of Coliad progress. Perchance 'tis a refinement in the 

 mechanism of flight, or mayhap some new sort of musical implement, 

 dispensing ultimate atoms of harmony inaccessible to our coarse sense as 

 the " music of the spheres." Of the North American forms of Coiias 

 only three beside Elis are possessed of this peculiar apparatus. These are 

 Meadii, Ccesonia and Eurydice, and the possession of this character brings 

 them into very good society indeed, comprising such fine species as 

 Lesbia, Aurora, Vatitieri, Fieldii and Eledra., in all of which I have 

 examined this structure, as also in Edusa and Myrmidone. In Elis it 

 appears in all the males I have obtained, whether bred or caught. This 

 " glandular space " is not peculiar to Coiias. I have noticed it in several 

 species of Catopsilia, among them Rurina, Trite and Pyranthe. In 

 Gonopteryx clorinde ^ the structure is well developed, being' in the 

 specimen I examined 1 7 mm. long, and 2 mm. broad in the middle ; the 

 colour pale brown. In Coiias elis the " glandular space " varies from a 

 pale — slightly greenish — yellow to a bright orange. 



The foregoing parts of this description, relating to the size and propor- 

 tions of the butterfly, the breadth of the dark borders, and the size of the 

 several spots and marks on the wings, have been taken from captured 

 butterflies, because bred specimens seldom present the natural averages, 

 but instead exhibit differentiations constituting either type retardation or 

 race progress resulting from and proportioned to the conditions under 

 which they are reared ; conditions usually diverse from those of nature. 

 It will not be necessary to adhere to this discrimination in describing the 

 colors and the minute details, and these can more profitably be derived 

 from observation of the bred specimens, where they are displayed in a 

 perfection almost impossible to find intact in flown specimens. 



The material of Elis bred during three seasons, 1887 ^^ ^889 inclusive, 

 consists of three families ex ovo, and four butterflies matured from larvte 

 found wild — altogether 37 ,^ and 28$, not to mention a lot of parasites 

 from one of the estray larvae. These bred specimens mostly show a de- 

 parture from the average type developed under ordinary out-of-doors con- 

 ditions. In general this diversion is a progress, an advance of type, a 

 presentation of the ideal instead of the practical Elis. In natural con- 

 ditions Elfs is subject to somewhat severe limitations. The caterpillar 



