GENUS VANESSA 175 



hind wings and both wings of the female are concolorous, and 

 the dark margins are obsolescent, or in part wanting altogether ; 

 the usual light sub-marginal spots are but faintly indicated. Un- 

 derside, golden color, the male a little darker than the female ; 

 border faint, wholly wanting at apices and inner angles, no border 

 on hind wings ; the whole underside delicately penciled in light 

 brown, the basal part but slightly darker than the marginal ; the 

 silver C is long, slender, curved, barbed at both ends, but in the 

 type of the male the barbs are wanting. 



This is the largest Grapta in California, or on the West Coast, 

 and the lightest in color, well deserving the name, "Golden- 

 wing." It is a lowland species, flying on the hills and in the val- 

 leys, but not on the mountains, nor on the wide plains. 



Genus VANESSA. 



This is a genus of five species : all of them are short -bodied 

 and broad-winged butterflies, of extremely strong and rapid 

 flight. Some of the species are world-wide in flight, and all of 

 them, except Californica, are well-nigh continental in range. 



The various species have diiiferent food-plants. 



223. Vanessa Antiopa. 



Pl.\te XXII ; Figure 223. 



Fig. 223, Male, Southern California, 1886; Author. 



This is a very common and a world-wide species, well known 

 to every one who is at all acquainted with butterflies. The female 

 is very much like the male, a little larger, and the blue spots are 

 larger and more of them, on both wings. 



Food-plants are the leaves of willow and cottonwood trees, but 

 the willow is preferred. 



There is a variety or an aberration in the East that has the 

 golden band wider, and extending inward over the space usually 

 occupied by the blue spots, the blue spots being absent in that case. 

 This variety has not been named. 



Hippolyta. In Canada there is another variety, or aberration, 

 in the female only, where there is no golden band, the brownish- 

 black extending outward to the edge of the wings, with only a 



