HESPEKIDI; TIIANAOS ICELUS. 1507 



THANAOS ICELUS— The dreamy dusky wing. 



[Least clingy skipper (Al>l)ot) ; siiiall liluish hamlrd skipper (Mayimnl).] 



Nisoniades icclus Lintn., MS., SeiKld.-Burg., T/iannos icclii.i Fern., IJutt. Me., 105 (18S4) ; 



Proe. Bost. soc. nat. hist., xiii : 2.S8-2,S9, fig. 3 — Miiyn., Butt. N. E., 64-55, pi. 7, figs. 79, 79a 



1, r, 11(1870) ;— Park.. Can. eiit., iii : 113 (1<S71);— (18S6). 



Lintn., Ent. contr.,i : 30-32, pi. 7. figs. 5-0 (1872); Carlerocephalus mandan Mayn.,Butt. N. 



Pap., 1 : 72 (18S1) ; Rep. ent. N. Y., i: 3:55-336 E., pi. 8, figs. 85, 85 a [not the text] (188G). 



(1882) ;— Ed w., Can. ent., xvii : 98-100 (1885) ;— Nisoniades hamamaelidh Fitch, MS. 

 French, Butt. east. U. S., 355-356 (1885). 



;j'n/n»isice?MsScudd.,Syst. rev. Am. butt.. Figured by Glover, III. N. A. Lep., pl.T. 



61(1872). fig. 5, ined. ' 



God's Butterfly on our love's flower alight! 



It secmeth the beautiful thing, 

 At the first surmise of the heaven she hath left, 



For the winterless world will wing. 



Gerald Ma.ssey.— The Mother's Idol Broken. 



Imago (9: 6). Head covered with dark, slightly purplish brown hairs, mingled 

 with a few grayish brown ones ; a narrow line of pale grayish brown scales edges the 

 eye behind and above; tuft outside of the antennae black. Palpi furnished beneath 

 ■with pale gr.iy brown scales, occasionally paler at their tips, outside with a few and 

 above with many dark brown scales ; longer black hairs are also found in some abun- 

 dance outside and beneath; the terminal joint is nearly uniform dark brown, scarcely 

 lighter beneath, more heavily clothed than in the species hitherto described. Antennae 

 blackish witli a purple tinge, beneath the basal half of the joints wholly white and the 

 apical half largely flecked with white so as to give a hoary appearance, or, especially 

 towani the distal end, white with yellowish white fleckings and covering the inferior 

 surface of the club with a uniform field of silvery white, sometimes flecked especially 

 toward its borders with yellowish brown; anteriorly, on the stalk, the white extends 

 along the basal fourth of the joints forming distinct spots and above very narrow 

 pale or white annulations at the extreme base; anteriorly the club is black, sometimes 

 velvety black, but toward the tip it becomes tinged with castaneous, especially at the 

 edges, and the apical joint is wholly naked and castaneous. Tongue pitchy black, the 

 tip testaceous. 



Thorax covered above with dark brown, slightly gray flecked hairs; beneath with 

 slightly paler, mingled with pale gray hairs. Legs dark brown slightly tinged with pur- 

 plish on the tibiae and darker at the ape.x of the tarsal joints than at the base; more or 

 less gray-flecked beneath as far as the middle of the tarsi. Spurs brown flecked with 

 gray, reddish apically, minutely tipped with black; spines dark reddish luteous ; cl.iws 

 the same at the base, beyond dusky, p.ad dusky. 



Wings above very dark grayish-brown, scarcely tinged with fuliginous or mulberry. 

 Fore icings considerably flecked, especially on the outer half of the wing and along the 

 nervures with lilaceous scales ; these are most conspicuous in the upper half of the 

 wing between the extra- and intra-mcsial bands, within the spots of the extra-mesial 

 band and narrowly on either side of the black edging of the outer border, as well as be- 

 tween the extra-mesial and submarginal series of spots, especially in the upper half of 

 the wing ; less abundantly they are found in the upper portion of the intra-mesial band, 

 and scattered infrequently toward the base of the wing and along the inner margin, 

 especially in the outer half of the wing ; the basal third of the wing is so clouded 

 with confused dark patches that one can distinguish but seldom any interior limit to 

 the intra-mesial band ; the exterior margin runs from the tip of the costal nervure in a 

 slight curve, its convexity outward, to the lowest median nervule, close to its base, and 

 then crosses the Interspace below at right angles, starting from the median nervnre, 

 just before its first divarication. The extra-mesial band is more distinct, its exterior and 



