238 BUTTERFLIES 



posits in the West about a dozen species of fossil butter- 

 flies. It is strange indeed that these ethereal creatures 

 should be fossilized at all. One would think it scarcely 

 possible that they could be so preserved that a million 

 years after they had died man should be able to study 

 them, determine to what families they belonged, and even 

 guess with a high probability of accuracy upon what leaves 

 their caterpillars fed. This little collection of fossil but- 

 terflies was studied by one of the great American authori- 

 ties on living butterflies, the late Samuel H. Scudder, who 

 said of them: "They are generally preserved in such fair 

 condition that the course of the nervures and the color 

 patterns of the wings can be determined, and even, in 

 one case, the scales may be studied. As a rule, they are 

 so well preserved that we may feel nearly as confident con- 

 cerning their affinities with those now living as if we had 

 pinned specimens to examine; and, generally speaking, 

 the older they are the better they are preserved.'* 



A curious fact is that out of the comparatively few 

 species of these fossil butterflies two were easily recognized 

 as members of this Long-beak family. They were given 

 special scientific names and undoubtedly were closely re- 

 lated to the Snout butterfly which is still flying every year 

 in various parts of the United States. Our modern spe- 

 cies lays its eggs upon the leaves of hackberry and in these 

 geologic deposits of that far-gone era there have been 

 found well-preserved leaves of old hackberry trees, upon 

 which it is extremely probable that the caterpillars of these 

 ancient Long-beaks fed. What an opportunity for a 

 modern collector of butterflies to work his fancy, as he 

 thinks of those old times when these fossil creatures were 

 flying in the sunshine, depositing their eggs upon the 



