250 THE BUTTERFLIES OF NP:W ENGLAND. 



The insects of this group, which includes some of our most elegant 



butterflies, are rather above the average size, and usually dark and lustrous, 



with strongly contrasted white and metallic markings, the latter ordinarily 



green or blue in tint, the white usually in the form of broad transverse stripes 



across both wings ; the wings are a little elongate, but rounded, and the 



insects have a strong and often lofty flight. Mrs. Bush thus describes 



(Amer. nat., xv : 151) the flight and habits of our little known Californian 



Najas bredowi. 



" They are warriors, and seem to have a good deal of character. They alighted on 

 the white or black oaks high above, and with the appearance of being on the alert, 

 waited till a large yellow Papilio came in sight, when it was chased away. . . . They 

 were shy of light colors. When I had on a light-colored dress, I could not get near 

 one, but with a brown dress, they would alight on it and about my feet. Throwing 

 small pebbles, chips or rocks at them seemed to enrage them, and they would follow 

 anything thrown at them back to the ground." 



Like most butterflies, the Nymphalidi are principally found in warm cli- 

 mates ; their metropolis is in and about the East Indian archipelago, but 

 they are moderately represented in the temperate zones, and are, in gen- 

 eral, far more abundant in the Old World than in the New ; two genera, 

 at least, occur in North America. 



The eggs are globular and deeply pitted, the walls of the pits surmounted 

 at their junction by not very short, slender, fleshy filaments ; they are laid 

 singly at the extreme tips of leaves. The larva is very peculiar, having 

 several of the segments conspicuously arched or swollen, and both the 

 body and head covered with unequally distributed compound tubercles ; 

 otherwise it is nearly cylindrical ; it is solitary in habit, feeding principally 

 on Caprifoliaceae or allied plants in the Old World, or on Betulaceae or 

 their neighbors in the New ; and so far as we know, always hibernating 

 as a caterpillar, constructing for itself a nest from a rolled up leaf, to which, 

 generally when about half grown, it retires for the winter. The chry- 

 salis is furnished with a peculiar, compressed, dorsal projection on the 

 abdomen : and usually has rather conspicuous ocellar prominences, but 

 otherwise it is not angulated. These insects are usually double-brooded, 

 or partly single and partly double. A single genus occurs in eastern North 

 America. 



BASILAECHIA SCUDDER. 



Basilarchia Scudd., Syst. rev. Amer. Butt., S Liraenitis pars Auct. 



(1872) . Not Callianira P6r .-Les. 1810. 



CalhaniraHtibn.jVerz. bek. Schmett., 38 (1816). Type. — Papilio astyanax Fahr. 



Gay butterflies, a dazzling train 

 In gold and purple drest. 



VYuC^.— Noontide. 



Imago (52 : 9). Head large, densely covered with short hairs, with a slight tuft around 

 the base of the antennae. Front moderately full, slightly hollowed above, considerably 

 protuberant in the middle below, narrower than the eyes, distinctly broader tlian high, 



