896 THK BUTTERl-I.lKS OK NEW KXGLAND. 



have been in Miissacliusetts, wlicre it lias been found aliout Boston by 

 everyone, at Andover (Sanborn), Amherst (Merrill, Parker), several 

 other places in the Connecticut Valley, such as Deerfield, Leverett and 

 Mt. Toby (Sprague), and Springfield abundant (Emery), as well as on 

 Cape Cod (Fish) and the island of Nantucket, where it is extremely abun- 

 dant. 



Haunts. In Nantucket the butterfly is confined exclusively to the im- 

 mediate vicinity of the roads tlirough the scrub oaks ; elsewhere they are 

 not to be found, not even on tlie edges of the oak shrubbery. Mr. Saun- 

 ders writes from London, Ont. : — 



Tlu' l)uttertly is never found in wet places where willows arc .ibundant but on dry 

 ground where oak bushes are common; unless when settled on tlowers in the vicinity, 

 they were almost invariably found on these oak bushes, sometimes on tlie under sur- 

 face of a leaf, as if searching for a suitable place of deposit for eggs ; when they were 

 driven from these they returned in a short time as if their business among these 

 shrubs was too important to be set asifle. 



Food plant and habits of caterpillar. The caterpillar, which has 

 only been found by Mr. Saunders, feeds upon oak, eating small holes in 

 the leaves. To judge from the abundance of the butterfly on the island of 

 Nantucket, it is probably found on Quercus ilicifolia. JNIiss Middletou 

 adds hickory as a food plant, but probably by confusing it with the pre- 

 ceding species with which it was formerly confounded : in the orna- 

 mentation of the larva the two are very distinct. It is, however, not 

 absolutely certain that the larva here described belongs to this species, 

 since it has never been reared ; Ijut as Mr. Saunders has found the butter- 

 fly abundantly and always about oak bushes and since this larva was 

 obtained by beating the same bushes later in the season, and there is no 

 other species to which it can be referred without involving great difficul- 

 ties, one can hardly help accepting Mr. Saunders's theory ; yet the 

 comparative scarcity of the caterpillar and al)undance of the butterfly is 

 certainly curious. The caterpillar moves about with comparative rapidity, 

 in marked distinction to the sluggishness of the allied species. 



Life history. The butterfly is most abundant in July. According to 

 Mr. Liutner's observations, it appears sometimes as early as the 22d of 

 June, but usually not until the lOtli of July ; toward the last week of 

 this month the females begin to outnumber the males, and they continue 

 upon the wing througliout August, in the latter part in scanty numbers, 

 and are now and then seen during the first week of September. In Nan- 

 tucket one year I found both sexes abundant and fresh, though some fe- 

 males torn, on August 3 ; three-fourths of a large number captured were 

 females ; on the .5th they were sliglitly less abundant and less fresh, espec- 

 ially the males. Probably most of the eggs are laid early in August, 

 though I have taken a pretty fresh female as late as August 28 ; they 

 doubtless continue throughout the winter, although Mr. Saunders writes 



