LEPIDOPTERA. 235 



here it will be easy to find, collect, and destroy them, either in 

 the caterpillar or chrysalis state. The butterflies also may 

 easily be taken by a large and deep bag-net of muslin, attached 

 to a handle of five or six feet in length ; for they fly low and 

 lazily, especially when busy in laying their eggs. In Europe 

 the caterpillars of the white butterflies are eaten by the laro-er 

 titmouse {Parus major), and probably our own titmouse or 

 chickadee, with other insect-eating birds, will be found equally 

 useful, if properly protected. 



We have several kinds of small six-footed butterflies, some 

 of which are found, during the greater part of the summer, in 

 the fields and around the edges of woods, flying low and fre- 

 quently alighting, and oftentimes collected together in little 

 swarms on the flowers of the clover, mint, and other sweet- 

 scented plants. Their caterpillars secure themselves by the 

 hind feet and a loop, when about to transform ; but they are 

 very short and almost oval, flat below and more or less convex 

 above, with a small head, which is concealed under the first 

 ring; and the feet, which are sixteen in number, are so short, 

 that these caterpillars in moving seem to glide rather than 

 creep. The chrysalids are short and thick, with the under side 

 fiat, the upper side very convex, and both extremities rounded 

 or obtuse. They belong to a little group which may be called 

 Lycenians (Lycenace), from the principal genus included 

 in it. 



The heads of the common hop are frequently eaten by the 

 little green and downy caterpillars of a very pretty butterfly, 

 which has been mistaken for the Thecla Favonius, figured in 

 Mr. Abbott's "Natural History of the Insects of Georo-ia-" 

 but it differs from it in so many respects, that I do not hesitate 

 to give it another name, and will therefore call it the hop-vine 

 Thecla, Thecla Hiimuli* The wings on the upper side are 

 dusky brown, with a tint of blue-gray, and, in the males, there 

 is an oval darker spot near the front edge ; the hind wings 



* M. Boisduval has figured and described this species under the name of 

 Thecla Favonius, in his " Ilistoire dcs Lcpldoptcres de TAmcriquc Septcntrio- 

 nale." 



