HESPERIDI: EPARGYREUS TITYRUS. 1405 



there. Lowe reports it t'loTu Kssex Coiintv. It is found at Montreal 

 (Bowles) and is even stated to he common there by Caulfield ; it occurs at 

 Ottawa (Fletc'lier), is reported at Cliateaiii^iiay Basin, and a single speci- 

 men lias been taken at (^nebee (Bowles). 



It is a tolerably common, sometimes abundant, species in the three 

 southern New England States, occurring even in such elevated places as 

 Andovcr (Sanborn), Shirley (Scudder), Mount Toby (Sprague), and 

 Williamstown, ]\Iass. (Scudder) ; north of this it becomes rarer, having 

 been taken only in New Hampshire at Milford "plenty" (Whitney), 

 Dover (Faxon), "Walpole, a single specimen (Smith) and a few at 

 Plymouth (Scudder) ; and in Maine a single specimen at Norway and a 

 few at Hallo well (Miss Wadsworth). 



Haunts. The butterfly may usually be found about gardens where it is 

 attracted at mid-day by flowers. Mr. Lintner has found it about lilacs, 

 Miss Coggeshall noticed it constantly alighting on the "Prince's feather" 

 (Higginson) and I have often noticed its attraction by the butterfly-weed, 

 Asclepias tuberosa ; Mr. Lowell Elliot also speaks of its swarming in 

 Central Park, N. Y., about the flowers of Salvia splendens, and it has been 

 caught in a lady's slipper, Cypripedium spectabile. Mr. Allen, however, 

 found it in groves in Iowa rather than in the flower-bedecked prairies ; all 

 the specimens brought home by him, however, were females and may have 

 been in search of locust trees. 



Food plants. Like the caterpillar of the preceding species, this larva 

 feeds on a number of papilionaceous Leguminosae ; the following are 

 known : false indigo, Amorpba fruticosa Linn. (Chapman, Riley) ; 

 common locust, Robinia pseudacacia Linn. (Harris and others) ; clammy 

 locOst, R. vi.scosa Vent. (Abbot, Harris) ; rose acacia, R. hispida, which 

 it seems to prefer to R. pseudacacia (Sanborn) : R. neomexicana in southern 

 California (Hulst) : American Wistaria, Wistaria frutescens DeC. (Gosse, 

 Chapman, Edwards) ; bush clover, Lespedeza capitata Michx. (Lintner) ; 

 marsh vetchling, Lathyrus paluster Linn. (Hamilton) ; and ground nut, 

 Apios tuberosa Moench. (Chapman). I have taken it on many of the 

 above, and am inclined to think that Robinia hispida is its commonest food 

 in New England ; I have also found the larva in abundance in the Botanic 

 Garden in Cambridge on Desmodinm marylandicum Boott, on which 

 no one appears to have noticed it, and found it also in Amherst Notch in 

 great numbers on Desmodium nudiflorum DeC. and Amphicarpaea monoica 

 Ell. Thev freely eat Desmodium canadense and Gleditschia. As these 

 plants are widely distributed among the different tribes it is highly pro- 

 bable that it may feed on any papilionaceous Leguminosae. 



Habits of the caterpillar. When it is very young, and until it has 

 arrived at its third stage, the caterpillar constructs a nest by nearly sever- 

 ing from one side of the leaf a small roundish piece and folding it over, so 



