996 THE BUTTERFLIES OF NEW ENGLAND. 



away from any threatened clanger. Yet entirely apart from this, one may 

 roughly divide butterflies into domestic and feral according to their habits 

 and sympathies. Thus among the feral tribes should be ranked nearly all 

 tlie Satyrinae, and especially such forms as Oeneis jutta, Enodia port- 

 landia and Cissia eurytus, and among the companionable sorts nearly all 

 tiie species of Vanessidi. Instances of the boldness and even friendliness 

 of the latter are not uncommon. "While I lingered here," says one of 

 our happiest describers of the habits of beasts and birds, "a pretty butter- 

 fly, the red admiral, alighted upon my knee as I was writing, and seemed 

 wholly at ease in this unusual position. Something upon my clothes was 

 attractive to it, and the graceful movements of its proboscis, and occasional 

 down-dipping of one antenna and then the other were amusing. I noticed 

 that the right and left wing moved separately down and up, as though to 

 retain the creature's balance, which the wind threatened, and at each such 

 movement of the wings, the corresponding antennae likewise dipped. This 

 buttei-fly occasionally flew to the bushes near by, but never to remain long 

 away, and sooner or later returned and was my companion for a great part 

 of the day." (Abbott, Waste land wanderings, 79). The pages of the pres- 

 ent work contain many instances of the vivacious and inquisitive ways of these 

 butterflies. The entomologist cannot fail to be aware of them. Seeing 

 one alight upon the tip of a bough near by he strikes at it with his net, 

 only to see it fly off" in an apparent paroxysm of terror, while if he but 

 stop a moment, he will see the runaway return, dash about him and alight 

 again upon the selfsame spot in a defiant way, flirting its wings up and 

 down, as who should say "Try it again, will you?" For there is much 

 that is sportive as well in the ways of many butterflies. One of my favor- 

 ite modes of showing this characteristic to unbelieving friends has been to 

 toss my cap high in the air, when these butterflies will often dart, dash at 

 and play around it as it begins again to descend. DeGarmo has noticed 

 this characteristic, as witness the following passage : — 



"One of the most curious features of a butterfly's life is its sportive or 

 playful moods aod ways. It was some time before I appreciated the fact 

 that they indulged in such moods at all. Seeing them start vigorously 

 after other insects on the wing, I assumed without investigation that these 

 were movements in self defence, till all the facts jwinted to them as move- 

 ments in play. This opened a new and interesting field of observation. 

 The spirit of playfulness I found to prevail more towards sundown than 

 in the morning. Only a very few times have I seen any signs of it in the 

 moi-ning and never in the absence of sunshine. I found it far more com- 

 mon among the highly developed four-footed butterflies, as the Graptas, 

 Vanessas, etc., than among the six-footed Papilios. . . The greatest mani- 

 festation of fun and frolic was in a group of alopes, some thirty in num- 

 ber, clustered under a tree in the shade. Such wild gambols on the wing 



