74 THE WHITE MOUNTAINS 



grotesque party-colored caterpillar, scarcely to be 

 distingiiished from that of its congener, the Vice- 

 roy (B. archippus). The latter is also common 

 (though less common than in southern New Eng- 

 land), prefers the willow and the poplar, and may 

 be found feeding even up to the extreme limit of 

 forest vegetation on the mountain side. 



This, too, is the New England metropolis for 

 that high-spirited butterfly, the Green Comma 

 (Polygonia f annus). Unlike arthemis, it is 

 never found in flocks, but only by threes and fours 

 at most, keeping up a constant warfare with one 

 another ; but it is still so coimnon along the roads, 

 and particularly in the more open s]3ots, or where 

 the roads enter bits of forest or cross a mountain 

 brook, that, notwithstanding its wary activity, one 

 may even capture in favorable times a hundred in 

 a day ; once I must have seen five hundred in a 

 single railway ride of six miles in the forest on the 

 western side of Mt. Washington between Fabyan's 

 and the base of the mountain. Its caterpillar — 

 also party-colored, but bristhng with spines — may 

 be found both on the black birches and the wil- 

 lows. Where both these plants are found in such 

 abundance, search would seem to be vain ; but if it 

 is confined to such sprays of the smaller plants as 



