LYCAENINAE: CYANIRIS PSKUDARGIOLUS. 927 



S^wiss natur:ili.-it Dcsor, wlio losiik'd sc\tial ycuiK in the L'nitcil States> 

 this writer attributes everytliiiig to tlie far greater dryness of the climate, 

 when comparing castei-n America and Europe. This produces, according 

 to him, a nervous irritahility, tiie recognition of which lias compelled a 

 measure of self-restraint, and the exercise of this lias gone far to make the 

 development ot' our political institutions possil^lc I AN'liat a futiu'c is before 

 the future iniiabitants of our arid plains I 



Dirt'erences will be found in all t)ther climatic ijhenomena of the two 

 continents. "From Europe as a standard," says Blodgett,* "the Ameri- 

 can climate is singularly extreme both in temperature, humidity, quantity 

 of rain, wind, and cloudiness or sensible humidity. The oscillations of 

 the conditions are greater, and tiu'v \il>rate through long measures above 

 and below the average. .Vll the irregular as well as regular changes are 

 of this sort, and the European obsei'ver defines the climate as directly 

 antagonistic to that he has left." These differences, however, as Hum- 

 boldt and others long ago pointed out, have a broader bearing than the 

 above statements would imply ; for they are characteristic of the eastern 

 shores of both worlds as opposed to the western, the meteorological phe- 

 nomena of the eastern United States being almost precisely paralleled by 

 those of northern China, where great excesses of temperature occur, with 

 wide variability, long summers and winters, and ra[)id transitions. 



Perhaps on these grounds we can most simply account for the difference 

 in the number of broods in ccrtaiu butterflies on the two continents ; but, 

 if so, then it follows that we ought to anticipate similar differences 

 between the broods of some of the species found both in Europe and in 

 eastern Asia ; a point about which wc can assert absolutely nothing, for want 

 of data. These grounds, however, will certainly be insufficient to account 

 for the differences to which we have alluded in man : for what contrast 

 could well be greater than that existing between the national character of 

 the Chinese and that of the Americans I We are rather forced to believe 

 that the causes of the distinction between the European and the American, 

 if these are due to physical agencies, must chiefly be sought elsewhere. 



CYANIRIS PSEUD ARGIOLUS— The spring azure. 



[The spring azure (Scutltler); pale blue butterfly (Maynard).— The difterent forms have 

 received specitic names : C. p. lucia: Blue Lucia butterfly (Harris) ; spring azure (Soudder). 

 C.p.violacea: DoUed azure (Scudder). C. p. neglecta: Pale azure (Gosse) ; azure blue but- 

 terfly (Harris); southern azure, pale azure (Scudder).] 



Argus pseudargiolus Boisd.-LeC, L(!p. Brit, nuis., ii: 4.5(184") ;—Edw.,Proc.ent.soc. 



smiT. sept., llS-119, pi. .36, figs. 1-5 (183.3);— Philad., vi: 204-200 (1886) ; Butt. X. Amer., I, 



Morr., Syn. Lep. X. Am,, 82-83 (1862). Lye. ii, figs. 1-3 (1870) ; ii, pi. Lye. ii, iii, pp. 1- 



Lycaena pseudargiolus 'Do\x\>\.,l,\at. 1,6 f. 10 (1884); Can. ent., v: 223-224 (1873); vii: 



•Climatology of the United States, p. 221. 



