1802 BUTTERFLIES BEYOND NEW ENGLAND. 



"Both sexes are conspicuous, the males from the strong contrast of 

 color, and the females from their great size and the habit of alicrhtingf on 

 the topmost flowers and resting with wings erect and motionless. It is an 

 exceedingly alert and wary species, differing in this from our other Argyn- 

 nides. At the slightest alarm it will fly high into the woods, near which, 

 upon the narrow bottoms or river slopes it is invariably found. It is a 

 true southern species, sensitive to cold, not to be looked for in the cooler 

 part of the morning, but flying down from the forest when the sun is well 

 up. From eleven to three o'clock is its feeding time" (Edwards). 



There is scarcely another butterfly in the whole of North America in 

 which the contrast between the sexes is so great as in the present species. 

 This is the more striking since it belongs to a group remarkable for the 

 similarity of markings in the two sexes, its next neighbor, Speyeria idalia, 

 being the only one where an appreciable difference exists (except for the 

 patches of androconia) and here it extends to the color only of a row of 

 spots found in both sexes alike. This diflTerence, as we have pointed out 

 in the body of this work, is a clear case of parastatic mimicry, the mimicry 

 affecting the female only (as most in need of such protection), and is the 

 more surprising since the butterfly mimicked belongs to the only genus in 

 our fauna, where, in other species, parastatic mimicry of a Euploeid butter- 

 fly occurs. If a butterfly of the genus Basilarchia needs protection and 

 gains it by mimicry of Anosia or Tasitia, why should Semnopsyche take to 

 imitating a normal Basilarchia ? That it does closely resemble it any one 

 can see, and the following passage from Edwards, writing of the discovery 

 of the female, may be taken in evidence : ' 'While breaking my way through 

 a dense thicket of [iron-weed] , hoping to find another diana [male] , I came 

 suddenly upon a large black and blue butterfly, feeding so quietly as to 

 allow me to stand near it some seconds and watch its motions. It seemed 

 to be a new species of Limenitis [Basilarchia] , allied to Ursula [astyanax] , 

 which it resembled in color." 



It may also be pointed out that its range is altogether included within 

 that of Basilarchia astyanax. 



ARGYNNIS FABRICIUS. 

 ARGYNNIS ALCESTIS. 



Argynnis alcestis'Eiiv!., Trans. Amer. ent. (1880);— 'Worth., Can. eiit., x : 37-38 (1878); 

 Boc.v: 289-291 (1876); Can. eut., sii: 69-73 —Freuch, Butt. east. U.S., 158-160 (1886). 



Imago. Head and appendages as in A. aphrodite. Wings with the upper surface 

 dark orange fulvous, the basal third of the wings slightly infuscated with duslsy scales 

 and tawny hairs, but to a much less extent and depth than in aphrodite; markings of 

 both wings precisely the same in general character and position as there, excepting 

 that they are less heavy ; they consist in the fore loings of two pairs of sinuous or bent, 

 slender, black bars crossing the cell, each pair partially encircling a fulvous spot; a 

 Bickle-shaped black bar at the extremity of the cell; a mesial, transverse, wholly inter- 



