234 The Ottawa Naturalist [January 



SCUDDER'S BLUE. 

 By J. B. Williams, F. Z. S. 



Dr. Scudder's interesting article in the August number of the 

 Ottawa Naturalist on " My First Namesake," brought to my 

 mind the fact of there being a second brood ot LycKua scndderi ; 

 and I went to High Park, near Toronto, on the evening of August 

 i6th, to try and find some of these butterflies. I had secured 

 quite a number of the first brood on the lupine patches there 

 during the month of June. It was almost six o'clock before I was 

 able to reach the Park, and I quite feared that it would be too 

 late ; however, the place was exposed to the setting sun, and a 

 number were still flying about ; so that, in half an hour, two 

 males and eight females of the desired species were captured. 

 Several of them flew up from tall grass growing where the lupines 

 flourished in the early summer. The flowering stems of the 

 lupines were all dead, and the few leaves that remained near the 

 ground were half withered, and did not look as if they would form 

 very nourishing food for the young caterpillars, if the eggs of the 

 second brood hatch in August. I therefore went again to High 

 Park on December 7th, to see if any trace of eggs or chrysalids 

 could be found. It was a mild, dry, afternoon, and I grubbed 

 about on hands and knees among the dead lupine plants for a 

 good hour ; and as a result, found two tiny white objects, one on 

 a piece of stalk, and one a seed-pod, which when looked at under 

 a pocket-lens, appeared to be the "turban-shaped elegantly 

 chased eggs," described by Dr. Scudder. 



A mounted policeman who was patrolling the Park seemed 

 rather suspicious of my movements, perhaps thinking he had 

 come across an escaped lunatic, for the asylum is on that side of 

 the city ; and to the uninitiated, my actions may have appeared 

 rather curious. When I got back to the road, he was standing a 

 short distance from the Park conferring with a brother officer, 

 and as I passed, one of them saluted me with " good afternoon." 

 My answer was, I suppose satisfactory, for they made no attempt 

 at an arrest, and I got safely back to the city with the two 

 butterfly eggs. The price has fallen since Dr. Scudder collected 

 at Albany, for my trip was a cheap one, and they only cost about 

 seven cents apiece ; nevertheless, that is a good price for such 

 small objects, and I shall be sorry if they turn out, after all, to be 

 something else, and do not hatch out in the summer as Scudder's 

 Blue. 



