GENUS LYC.ENA 227 



variant female. I find it every year at one spot, Acmon prevailing 

 in Mav, Melimona in June, and in July only Melissa is seen. In 

 1887 I sent some specimens to W. H. Edwards, and he said it was 

 "only a variety of Acmon." The locality of Melimona is a little 

 open mesa on the southern slope of the mountain, at an altitude of 

 3,500 feet, and there I find it every year in June, but at no other 

 time. There is no male Melimona. 



The larval food-plant is Hosackia purshiana, a slender, pro- 

 cumbent species, which grows among the grass in damp places. 



383. Lycasna Lotis. Not elsewhere illustrated. 

 Plate XXIX : Figures 383, b, c. 



Fig. 7,8^, Male, Mendocino County, Cal., 1887 ; from 

 James Behrens. 



b. Female, Blue Lakes, Cal., May, 1894; Author. 



c, Male, underside, ]\Iendocino County, June, 1887; 



Behrens. 

 This is one of the rare butterflies of California, so rare that these 

 figures show all that I have obtained in twenty-five years of butter- 

 fly hunting. The male is deeply violet-blue with a changeable 

 luster of lighter blue ; the female is darker blue and without a 

 changeable gloss. The under side of both sexes is grayish ; the 

 discal row of spots on fore and hind wings together forms the 

 segment of a circle, if the wings are properly spread : at anal angle 

 is a black spot split into one large and one small spot, the larger 

 one covered with metallic blue-green scales, and above this a 

 marginal row of yellow-brown lunules, becoming obsolete at outer 

 angle. 



384. Lycaena Anna. 



Plate XXIX: Figures 384, b, c. 



Fig. 384, Male, Sierra Nevadas of California, July, 1892; 

 Author. 



b. Female, Sierra N^evadas of California, July, 1892 ; 



Author. 



c, Female, underside, Sierra Nevadas of California, 



July, 1892 ; Author. 



This is a large and showy butterfly, somewhat like Melissa in 



point of markings, but Anna is not so blackish, either above or 



beneath, and is always much larger in size. Anna is a mountain 



species, and rather of a northern one as well ; it flies from the 



