THE BUTTERFLIES OF THE DISTRICT OF 

 COLUMBIA AND VICINITY 



By Austin H. Clark 

 Curator of Echinoderms, United, States National Museum 



INTRODUCTION 



The area covered in this report indudes the District of Cohimbia, 

 Arlington County, and the portions of Alexandria, and Fairfax 

 County, Va., immediately adjacent, the Potomac River Valley as 

 far as Great Falls, and the territory east and north of Washington 

 as far as the Eastern Branch, Beltsville, Paint Branch, Silver 

 Spring, and Chevy Chase in Maryland. It was necessary thus to 

 extend the limits of the area because of the obliteration within the 

 District itself of various types of habitats presumably once support- 

 ing butterflies that are now no longer found within its borders. 



COLLATERAL STUDIES 



In order to provide the requisite background for the proper inter- 

 pretation of the faunal relationships of the District, many trips were 

 taken by motor to other faunal areas. 



A trip was made to Norfolk, Va., and thence south along the coastal 

 plain to Florida, the return journey being by an inland route through 

 Berkeley, Williamsburg, Florence, and Marion Counties, S. C, and 

 the cities of Lumberton, Fayetteville, Goldsboro, Wilson, and Rocky 

 Mount, N. C. ; thence to Petersburg and Richmond, Va. 



Another trip was made to the mountain counties of central-western 

 Virginia, and to Greenbrier, Fayette, and Kanawha Counties in West 

 Virginia. 



The counties bordering Chesapeake Bay from Calvert County in 

 the south to Cecil County, Md., in the north were visited, and at 

 different times all the counties of Maryland west of these to and in- 

 cluding Washington County, as well as Chester, Lancaster, York, 

 Adams, and Franklin Counties, Pa., were also visited. 



Some years ago I spent a summer in the valleys of the Holston, 

 Clinch, and Powell Rivers in southwestern Virginia and northeastern 

 Tennessee, and there made a fairly large collection of the local 

 species. 



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