LYCAENIDAE: THECLIDI. 1825 



covered above with brown, having bluish and green reflections, and similar blue green 

 scales, below with yellowish brown hairs ; the legs more or less flecked and annulated 

 with sordid white. 



Wings above rich black brown, the disk more or less intensified, supplanted by bril- 

 liant, glossy, dark blue with green reflections. Fore wings with the costal edge orange ; 

 in the male the blue disk is limited by a line which follows the upper margin of the 

 cell, passes in a strongly rounded curve to the middle of the upper median nervule and 

 then runs subparallel to the outer margin to the inner margin; it encloses a discal tri- 

 angular spot of dead brown androconia at the outer limit of the cell, its apex below; 

 in the female the blue disk is confined to patches In the lower half of the cell, at the 

 base of the lower median and the basal half of the medio-submedian and internal inter- 

 spaces. Hind wiyigs : in the male, the blue disk is limited by a curving line which 

 passes above the cell, encloses a little of the upper subcostal interspace and runs toward 

 the lower median nervule in a curve, constantly approaching the outer margin ; in the 

 female it occupies scarcely less space; anal angle marked by a bright, dark orange 

 spot, flecked to a certain extent with blue scales, especially on the upper inner surface, 

 followed without by the black edging of the whole outer margin, and within, above, 

 by a small white spot ; tails black, white tipped ; fringe of all the wings pale brown, 

 becoming white in the lower half of the hind wings. 



Beneath, uniform mouse-brown. Fore wings crossed by a straight, narrow, white 

 stripe, more or less interrupted by the nervures, edged more or less faintly on the 

 inner side with dark brown, and running from the costal margin to the middle of the 

 lowest median nervule at right angles to the costal margin ; nearly midway between 

 this and the outer margin, but parallel to the latter is a similar but very obscure and 

 cloudy stripe, edged without, instead of within, by the dark brown, sometimes more or 

 less obsolete. Hind wings with a similar, but if anything narrower, transverse, extra- 

 mesial stripe, forming a very large, fine W or reversed M, whence the name; in char- 

 acter it is in most respects similar to that of the fore wings, being interrupted by 

 nervures, sometimes shifted slightly in position by them, but runs from the upper 

 subcostal nervule in a nearly straight course to the lower median nervule, in the medio- 

 submedian interspaces forms the middle limbs of the M , and in the interspace below 

 runs at right angles to its early course, crossing the middle of the costo-subcostal inter- 

 space as a short, slender, white bar, edged internally with black; midway between the 

 M-streak and outer border is another series of white bars, often obsolete in the 

 upper half of the wing, generally disconnected, sometimes scattered to form a powdery 

 line, and then more or less bluish in tint; it is only in the lower half of the wing that 

 it becomes distinct, and hen; it takes a course subparallel to the general trend of the 

 extra-mesial stripe and is distinctly followed exteriorly with black ; these two parts are 

 separated by a large and brilliant, lighter or deeper orange, round spot in the lowest 

 median interspace, a spot which is ordinarily accompanied at 'its exterior base by a 

 small black spot, and is edged above with black; anal angle occupied by a deep black 

 spot, followed above, interiorly, by a small white spot, exteriorly by a larger orange 

 spot ; and in the apical portion of the medio-submedian interspace a black spot, heavily 

 powdered with blue, sometimes so that the blue almost supplants the black; this spot 

 is edged above with white before meeting the tongue of the orange spot of the inter- 

 space below. Expanse of wings, 36-38 mm. 



Caterpillar. Last stage. Head black. Body slightly pubescent, of a pale green 

 with a yellowish tinge, a dorsal stripe and seven oblique, lateral streaks of a dull 

 green, a stigmatal yellow stripe, slightly shaded with dull green above. Length, 18 

 mm. (Boisduval and LeConte.) 



Chrysalis. Gray brown, with the front part of the body and the wing cases pale, 

 slightly greenish gray. Length, 11 mm. ; height, 5 mm. (Boisduval and LeConte.) 



This pretty butterfly occurs in the southern half of the United States, 

 east of the Great Plains, and extends southward also into Mexico and 



