70 THE COMMONER BUTTERFLIES. 



blackish, slender, at least three times as high as broad, arranged 

 much as in Euphydryas. Length nearly 1 inch. 



Chrysalis. — "Some are light-colored, nearly white, with 

 delicate blackish spots and fine streaks of brown over the 

 surface; others are almost wholly black, while others again are 

 between the two extremes " (Edwards). It closely resembles that 

 of CincUdia harrisii^ from which it may be distinguished by 

 having no suprastigmatal tubercle on the second abdominal 

 segment, and by the wing spots hardly forming a definite band. 

 Length ^ inch. 



The eggs, the sides of which are ribbed above, pitted iji 

 the middle, and smooth below, are pale green and are laid 

 on the under surface of a leaf of the food-plant in clusters 

 of from a few up to a hundred, side by side in regular rows; 

 they hatch in from nine to fourteen days. The caterpillars 

 feed on various Composite plants, jiarticularly sunflower 

 and Actinomeris; when young they are gregarious and 

 feed on the parenchyma of the leaf; later they eat the 

 whole leaf, but at no time do they spin a web for conceal- 

 ment or protection; they hibernate when partly grow^n, 

 doubtless in crevices, and separate in spring, feeding 

 singly. The chrysalis hangs from ten to fifteen days. 

 The butterfly is not at all local and is far more common in 

 the West than in the East, where it has not been recog- 

 nized east of the middle of Maine. It appears to be single- 

 brooded in the North, flying in the latter half of June and 

 in July; bnt according to observations in AVest Virginia 

 and^Missouri it appears to be there partly single- and partly 

 double-brooded, a first generation appearing in May and a 

 second, partial generation in July, some of the caterpillars 

 from the May butterflies going into early hibernation, others 

 passing forward to form the second generation. 



Another species of this genus is C. ismeria, which is a southern 

 form, but in the West occurs as far north as Colorado and Montana 

 and has even been reported from Brandon, Manitoba, 



