1810 BUTTERFLIES BEYOND NEW ENGLAND. 



TRIBE MELITAEIDI. 



CHARIDRYAS SCUDDER. 



CHARIDRTAS ISMERIA. 



MelUaen ismeria BoisJ.-LeC, L(5p. AmSr. Eresia carlota Reak., Proc. ent. soc. 



sept., 168-169, pi. 46, figs. 1-4 (1S33). Philad., vi : 141 (1866). 



Dryas reticvhita gorgone pars Hiibu., Phyciodes ca)iotn.¥Knc^l,^ixAt.enst.XS■S■, 



Samral. exot. schmett., i, figs. 1, 2 [uec 3, 4] 174-175 (1886). 



(1806-19). Melitaea nycteis Edw., Proc. acad. nat. sc. 



Fhyciodes cocyta pars Htibn., Verz. bek- Philad., 1861, 161 (1861). 



schmett., 29 (1816). [Not Jlel. nycteis Doubl.] 



Imago. Head covered above •with very pale bro'wn and dusky hairs, behind the 

 eyes heavily clothed below with white, above with mingled lighter and darker brown 

 scales. Palpi silvery white on the basal half, passing beyond into brownish luteous, 

 fringed below throughout, and above on the apical half, with long black hairs, the 

 apical joint with blackish recumbent scales. Antennae black brown, annulated heavily 

 with white at the base of each joint, the white scales forming a continuous thread 

 along the under outer line, and marking the entire under surface of the club, except- 

 ing the edges; otherwise the club is naked and luteous, but on its broadest part much 

 infuscated. Thorax covered above with mouse brown, delicate hairs, with a tinge of 

 olivaceous, beneath with sordid white hairs. Legs heavily clothed with white scales, 

 becoming clay brown on the upper surface of the tibiae and tarsi and extremity of the 

 femora; fore legs with long white hairs. 



Upper surface of the wiugs black brown, heavily marked with pale fulvous. Fore 

 MiK^s with the cell mostly fulvous, but marked with black in ring-like markings en- 

 closing a fulvous, at the base a fusiform, spot; crossing the middle of the cell a pair 

 of complete attingent spots, the upper subcircular, the lower cordiform ; outer limit 

 of the cell marked with a black thread, beyond which is a slight fulvous bar; there is 

 an extra-mesial, tolerably broad band of interrupted fulvous spots, composed of two 

 portions, an upper which runs subparallel to the outer margin of the cell, from the 

 costal margin to the median nervnre, broadest in the middle and narrowing at either 

 extremity, but especially above; and of a lower portion of equal length, generally 

 much broader in the middle than at the extremities, arcuate in form, its convexity in- 

 ward ; this is followed interiorly in the lowest median and medio-submedian inter- 

 spaces by more or less fulvous, which sometimes includes the entire basal third of the 

 medio-submedian interspace, but is then marked with a black longitudinal line return- 

 ing upon itself; there is a sinuous series of subequal, round spots, white or fulvous in 

 the upper half of the wing, fulvous in the lower, running subparallel to the outer mar- 

 gin, about midway between the extra-mesial band and the margin, but nearer if any- 

 thing to the former ; between this and the outer margin there is a greater or less 

 number of interspacial spots, usually taking a more or less lunulate form, often obso- 

 lete, excepting that in the upper median interspace, which is almost always large, 

 lunulate, sometimes with greatly elongated ends ; these spots are of the same color as 

 those preceding them in the same interspaces. Hind wings with irregular fulvous 

 markings on the basal third of the wing, not uniform in diflferent individuals ; a mesial, 

 fusiform, moderately broad, fulvous band, cut by the fuscous nervules, and midway 

 between it and the outer border a slightly orange fulvous band of more or less discon- 

 nected spots, when most widely separated circular, including, in the subcostal, sub- 

 costo-median and median interspaces, a black, often faintly blue-pupiled, small, round 

 spot; these are often followed externally by faint, powdery, whitish lunules, most 



