THE TRIBE OF THE ANGLE-WINGS 171 



tember. This autumn brood doubtless furnishes the 

 butterflies that will be seen upon the wing the following 

 May, so that it is pretty certain that they must find some 

 shelter in which to pass the intervening months. 



The full-grown caterpillar of the Thistle butterfly is 

 about one and a quarter inches long and of a general 

 yellowish color, more or less marked with blackish as well 

 as with paler lines of color. There are many transverse 

 rows of spines along the segments, each yellowish spine 

 having a circle of smaller ones at the top. 



Notwithstanding its fondness for thistles, these cater- 

 pillars occasionally feed upon various other plants. One 

 might readily expect them to be able to live upon other 

 composites upon which they are found, but it seems a bit 

 strange that they should be recorded as being "especially 

 fond of mallows." 



The Mourning-cloak 



Vanessa antiopa 



One of the most scholarly students of American in- 

 sects has happily called the butterflies "the frail children 

 of the air." It seems a fitting term for creatures so 

 ethereal that they are readily wafted on the wings of the 

 slightest breeze and so delicate in structure that they are 

 likely to be sadly mutilated by the lightest touch of human 

 hand. Such creatures one would say belong to regions of 

 perpetual summer and have no place in the blizzard -swept 

 winters of our Northern states. 



Yet if one goes into the snow-clad woods during one of 

 the midwinter thaws one is likely to see in every open glade 

 several dark-colored butterflies flitting from tree to tree, or 



