342 S. 11. SCUDDER ON THE SPECIES OF 



So far as our knowledge of the seasons of apparition of these insects extends, it points 

 to the same conchision as the study of their colorational and structural features. Mr. Mead 

 has taken spochnens of four out of the five species more closely resembling P. conuna^ ; 

 and his notes upon them are so, full that it is certain the species follow each other in the 

 following order, at intervals of about a month : Nevada, Colorado, Manitoba, Juba. P. 

 Nevada appears the second week in June, the male jirobaljly in the early part of the week, 

 the female in the latter ; the butterlly continues to emerge from the chry-salis during the 

 month, and flies nearly to the end of July. P. Colorado probal^ly appears during the sec- 

 ond week in July and continues to emerge from the chr3^salis until nearly the end of 

 August, for Mr. Mead took fresh specimens during the second week of August, and of the 

 female throughout the entire month ; some individuals must therefore continue part way 

 into September. P. Manitoba appears the first week in August, or perhaps even by the 

 last of July, and continuing to emerge from the chrj^salis throughout August, may doubt- 

 less be found until the middle of September. P. Juha probably appears by the middle of 

 September, perhaps by the first of the montli, and continues upon the wing at least through 

 the first week in October, and probably until after the middle of the month. These state- 

 ments are based on the condition of the specimens collected by Mr. Mead, all of which I 

 have seen, every specimen labelled with the date of cajoture. 



Nothing is known of the seasons of P. Ottoe, excepting that a rubbed male was taken 

 in Iowa between the 21st and 24th of July. As to P. Sassacus, it is single brooded in 

 the north, double brooded in the south, and probaljly hibernates as a chrysalis. In the 

 south, i\\Q butterfly appears by the middle of April, and again, after ten days passed in the 

 chrysalis, at the end of August. In New England, the earliest butterflies are seen during 

 the last week in May, the female scarcely later than the male ; sometimes they do not 

 appear before the middle or latter part of the first week of June, and they evidently con- 

 tinue to emerge from the chrysalis until the middle of the montli, and remain on the wing 

 through June ; battered individuals may sometimes be found until the middle of July. 

 The female commences to lay eggs at least by the middle of Jime ; the eggs hatch in 

 twelve days. 



Writing of the European species, P. comma, Meyer-Diir says : - "• Since this butterfly- is 

 found from the lowest plains to the higliest alpine meadows, at an elevation of seven thou- 

 sand feet above the sea, its time of flight is very various ; yet I believe that in the low- 

 lands I have noticed two generations, since the earliest appear around Bvu-gdorf about the 

 17th of June, and disappear about the middle of July ; on August 21st fresh individuals 

 again fly in similar spots, and they disappear about the beginning of September. On the 

 heights of the Jura and the Alps, there is but one generation, which appears midway be- 

 tween these two, namely, in August. This mountain form, which I have collected between 

 the 6th and 10th of August on the top of the Grimsel, on the Meyenwand, in the Valais 

 above Varon, Leuk, and on the Gemmi, and, later, August 14th, on the Jura, is peculiar 

 for the remarkable size of the female, its darker ground color and more sharjily defined 

 clear yellow spots, as compared with the butterflies of the plains. . . . Keitel calls 



' The seasons of the fifth, P. si/hanoidcx, are unknown ; diival hhiiself in his first paper on Califoruian Lcpidoptera. 

 but this species was separated from P. comma by Bois- ^ Schmetterlinge der Schweiz, 216-7. 



