XV.Ml'lIALLXAE: AlUiYXXlS Al'lIKOI »1 li:. 569 



as a cnteri)illar just from the egg. It is, however, of the .species of Argyn- 

 nis, the last to appear in any given locality. The butterflies make their 

 advent about the first of July, although single specimens arc sometimes 

 taken in the latter part of June.* They are seldom abundant before the 

 end of the first week in July and continue plentiful, their numbers replen- 

 ished by frcsii specimens until the middle of the latter half of August, 

 after which they fly in constantly diminishing numbers until the middle of 

 September when they finally vanish. The eggs are not laid until the 

 middle and latter part of August and beginning of September. The 

 earliest I have known are some Miss Soule obtained on Aui^-ust 14 at 

 Stow, Vermont. 



Habits, etc The bnttcrfiies are excessively fond of fiowers and when 

 feeding can be readily taken with the fingers. In July the sterile hillsides 

 overgrown Avith thistles seem fairly alive with the butterflies. They fre- 

 quent also low meadows and usually fly near the ground. Colonel T. ^V . 

 Higginson writes from Princeton, Massachusetts, in the middle of July : — 



often as I have dreamed of a more abundant world of insects than any ever seen, I 

 never enjoyed it more vividly than in walking along the breezy, upland road, lined 

 with a continuous row of milk weed blossoms and Avhite floAvering alder, all ablaze 

 with butterflies. I might have picked ofl" hundreds of aphrodites by hand, so absorbed 

 were they in their pretty pursuit, and all the interspaces between their broader wings 

 seemed filled Avith little skippers and pretty painted ladies and au occasional comma. 

 The rare idalia and huntera sometimes visit them also, and a host of dipterous and 

 hymcnopterous things. The beautiful mountain breeze played forever over them and 

 it seemed a busy and a blissful Avorld. 



After a walk the next day on a road between the two AVachusetts, he 

 adds: "There was nothing of yesterday's procession of milk weed and 

 butterflies, though the latter part of the way the aphrodites and tharos 

 were so thick in the road, I brushed them away." 



Speaking of this species Mr. J. M. DeGarmo remarks that it once 

 exhibited remarkable knowledge and as remarkable stupidity. 



I found quite a number of them feeding on a cluster of thistles in front of a dis- 

 used barn. Behind the barn Avas a patch of low sumach bushes, through Avhose foli- 

 age the sunlight filtered in tiny blotches, as from a sieve. The ground underneath 

 Avas coA-ered with vines of the running blackberrj'. I came to the barn hurriedly and 

 Avhen near the butterflies tripped in the tangled grass and fell, flinging the net into the 

 thistles. When I arose not a butterflj- Avas to be seen. I Aveut to several adjacent 

 clusters of thistles, but found nothing. I searched all about in vain. Returning in 

 an hour I found them there again, and caught tAvo in a single cast of the net. But 

 after securing them, I discovered that the rest Avere all gone again. The next day I came 

 determined to spy out the pei'formance. A companion thrcAv the net at the thistles, 

 and lo ! the butterflies all flcAv around the barn, and lighted under the sumac bushes, 

 each on a blackberry leaf. Noav the oddest part of this AA'as, that they had made the 

 circumference of the barn to get to the hiding place, Avhen they could haA-e reached it 

 by a short trip directly across the end of the barn ; moreover, part of this route Avas 

 through the shade, Avhich a butterfly usually shuns. Here Avas another pi-oblem. The 



* Mr. Saunders reports a specimen taken at a typograpbical error? I Hnd no other such 

 liOndon, Ontario, on April 2G; but is not this statement. 



72 



