FAMILY SKIPPERS. 159 



grown and passing the winter in the larval nest, closing it 

 tightly, and only changing to chrysalis very early in the 

 following spring; bnt the last brood of the season is made 

 up not only by direct descent from the second, but also by 

 a certain proportion of the lethargic caterj^illars of the first 

 brood, which, when the regular time for change in the sec- 

 ond brood of caterpillars occurs, change tlien to chrysalis, 

 instead of doing so as soon as full fed or of waiting still 

 longer until the succeeding spring. The eggs, which are 

 subspherical with broad base and twelve to fifteen com- 

 pressed and not very high vertical ribs, are at first whitish 

 green, afterwards salmon-red, and are laid singly on the 

 under surface of the leaves of the food-plant and hatch in 

 about ten days in June. The caterpillar feeds on wild 

 columbine, Aquilegia canadensis, and has also been found 

 in the South on Chenojjodiurn album; although it does not 

 eat much of its egg-shell, it generally takes the caterpillar 

 about twenty-four hours to eat its way out, and this delib- 

 erate manner it retains through life; it makes its first nest 

 much after the manner of Thorybes, and after it has bitten 

 the channels requires three or four hours of continuous 

 work to bring the flap to the proper angle required for the 

 nest; when it leaves a nest to form a larger one it always 

 first bites off the strands which have kept the old flap in 

 place; it goes to another leaf to feed, and when mature 

 makes a nest of a whole leaf or of several leaves. The 

 chrysalis state in summer lasts from eleven to fifteen days. 



THANAOS PERSIUS— PERSIUS'S DUSKY- WING. 



(Nisoniades persius.) 



Butterfly. — Upper surface of fore wings dark grayish brown, 

 the basal half and a band across the middle of the outer half 

 blackish; between the two, next the costal margin, an indistinct 

 cinereous patch, followed outwardly by a descending row of four 

 or five minute vitreous spots ; hind wings chocolate - brown. 



