AS A HOME FOR BUTTERFLIES 73 



It is the region ^?«r exceUetice of that striking 

 butterfly, the Banded Purple (Basilarchia arthe- 

 mis). When the stage, with its city freight, wind- 

 ing its way over the hilly roads with the first rush 

 of travel, leaves most of the farms behind it and 

 enters the heart of the forest, flock after flock of 

 these showy butterflies arise from the damp spots 

 in the road where, sometimes by hundreds, they 

 are assembled to suck the moisture from the earth, 

 and then flutter about the stage in fascinating 

 bewilderment, settling again to the feast in a hes- 

 itating way as soon as the disturbance is past. 

 Indeed, they sometimes become a very nuisance, 

 dozens of them when seeking a shelter entering 

 the open doors and windows of the farm-houses, 

 and fluttering about the windows in a vain and 

 distracting attempt to escape when there is any 

 movement within. 



In the early season, when the buds are just be- 

 ginning to burst, the young caterpillar may be 

 found emerging from its hibernaculum deftly fas- 

 tened near the tips of black-birch sprigs everywhere 

 growing by the roadside ; in July, the bristling 

 globular egg attached to the extreme tip of the 

 pointed leaf of the same, and later the leaves eaten 

 in peculiar fashion, reveal where to look for the 



