HESPERIDI: I'lIOMSdRA CATULLUS. 1519 



by the merest accident from eggs collected in tlic field. The five known 

 kinds have already been f'oinid on the eggs of twelve different species of 

 American butterHies. Were this mode of collection more commonly and 

 anthentically employed, doubtless the list would be vastly extended. It 

 is a curious fact that there are no cases known to us of parasitic attack 

 upon those eggs which winter and are, therefore, subjected for the longest 

 period to such chances. 



I am inclined to believe that on the whole the greatest destruction of 

 lepidopterous life occurs during the egg-period ; certainly if the very first 

 larval stage be added to it, while the caterpillar wears the same clothing 

 it had in the egg, the statement would be unquestionably true ; the escape 

 of the fortunate must be laid to tln-ec considerations: the minuteness of 

 the objects, their extreme numiters and ordinarily the brevity of the 

 period ; enemies which attack a given species only in the egg state must 

 be on the alert when the egg period lasts only a fiftieth part of their 

 victim's life. That they are on the alert is shown by the very facts of 

 wholesale destruction, and no fact is more significant than that related 

 above by Mr. Woodwortli, on p. 118, of his capturing Telenomus graptae 

 at work laying its eggs in those of Euvanessa antiopa as fast as she de- 

 posited them. Here was the struggle for the perpetuation of species indeed ! 



PHOLISORA CATULLUS.— The sooty wing. 



[The black skipper butterfly (Abbot anj Smith); the sooty skipper (Gosse); white dotted 



black skipper (JIaynard).] 



Hesperia catvUna Fabr., entom. syst., iii: Pholisora catullus Scudd., Syst. rev. Am. 



348(1793);— God., Encycl. m«h., ix: "2.5, 777 butt., 51 (1872); Butt., 309, fig. U (1881);— 



(1819) ;— W(^stw., Dou. Ills. Ind., 79, pi. .50, French, Rep. 111. ins,, vii: 162 (1878); Butt, 



fig. 4(1812). east. U. S., 367, fig. 87 (1886) ;— Edw., Can. 



PapiUo catullus Smith-Abb., Lcp. ins. ent., xvii ; -215-248 (1885);— Mayn., Butt. N. 



Geo.. 47-48, pi. 24 (1797);— Abb., Draw. ius. E.,56, pi. 7, figs. 83, 83a (1886). 



Geo. Br. Mus., vi: 77, figs. 108-109; xvi:.52. Ancijloxipfut cntuUus Hew., Cat. coll. 



tab. 84 (ca. 1800). diurn. Lep., 246 (1879). 



yixoniades catullus Westw.-Hew., Gen. / Hetsperia I'ltenninier Go(i., Encycl. m^th., 



diurn. Lep., ii: 519 (1852) ;—Morr., Syn. Lep. ix : 725, 777-778 (1819). 

 N. Amer., 115 (1862) ;— Butl., Catal. Fabr. 



Lep., 286 (1809). Figured by Glover, 111. N. A. Lep., pi. 30, 



Thanans catullus Butl., Entom. month). tig. 7; pi. 37, fig. 6; pi. B, fig. 13, ined. 

 mag., vii: 97 (1870). 



Life is not sweet. One day it will be sweet 

 To shut our eyes and die : 



Nor feel the wild-llowcrs blow, nor birds dart by 

 With flitting butterfly, 



Nor grass grow long above our heads and feet. 



CnRisTixA RossETTi.— Li/e and Death. 



Imago (9:2). Head covered above with black or purplish black scales and hairs 

 marked distinctly with white or yellowish white; the transverse rid^e between the 

 antennae is mea<;rely edged in front with white, and the entire circuit of the eyes ex- 

 cept at the base of the palpi is edged witli alternate and nearly e<|ual spots of black 



