1534 THE BUTTERFLIES OF NEW ENGLAND. 



scarce that liardly a dozen examples are extant, taken in southern New 

 England and southern Ontario ; it is a well marked species and possibly 

 has been overlooked by its close affinity to some of the neigiiboring kinds. 

 The known local habits of Chrysophanus thoe and Epidemia epixanthe 

 will perhaps sufficiently explain their apparent absence from the little ex- 

 plored regions of the Canadian northwest, except in one or two localities 

 a thousand miles apart. Search at the proper season in the proper spots 

 in the intervening region will doubtless vastly extend oiu- knowledge of 

 their distribution. 



It will thus be seen that all the anomalies of distribution which are here 

 brought together appear to have their origin in insufficient knowledge. 

 They indicate that one of the most important regions for exploration is that 

 which lies along the boundary line between the United States and Canada 

 in the central parts of the continent, where more than elsewhere it is 

 probable that a bridge will be discovered, giving connection between the 

 colonies now known to exist upon the east and the west, and not in the in- 

 tervening area. 



More particularly is it true that insufficient knowledge must account for 

 apparent anomalies when we come to examine the Hesperidae, a group to 

 which so little attention has been given and where identification has been in 

 many cases not altogether clear ; that we have here much to learn is very 

 clear from our maps. Thanaos lucilius, known abundantly in southern 

 New England and an equivalent region west of it, is brought also from 

 distant Dakota and Georgia, but is not known in the intervening regions. 

 Thanaos persius has an immense distribution across the continent, but is 

 altogether unknown from the Mississippi valley, excepting its northern 

 portions, and yet occurs in central Texas. Pamphila mandan, found 

 north of our boundaries in the eastern portion of the Dominion of Canada 

 has also been taken in so many different points in the elevated region upon 

 the west coast from Nevada to Alaska that it will unquestionably be found 

 throughout the Dominion of Canada northwest of Lake Superior. In the 

 species of Amblyscirtes we have greater difficulties to deal with. A. 

 vialis is known northeast of a line stretching from Georgia to Montana, 

 but is not known west or south of that line, excepting in central Texas and 

 northern California ; and so A. samoset, evidently a more northern form, 

 found in a northern belt of country following in the main the valley of the 

 St. Lawrence, but extending west as far as Iowa, also occurs in consider- 

 able abundance in the uplands of Georgia, leading us to suppose that it 

 stretches southward along the Alleghanies. Euphyes verna, a species 

 almost entirely confined to a relatively narrow belt along the fortieth 

 parallel east of the Mississippi, has been taken in the Canadian northwest a 

 thousand miles away from its nearest neighbor ; so, too, the other species of 

 Euphyes, E. metacomet, which covers almost the entire northern half of 



