ARGYNNIS XI. 



dreds of miles of New Mexico. Tiie examples, two males, one female, were taken 

 by Lieut, (now Captain) W. L. Carpenter, U. S. A., in New Mexico, above timber 

 line. I wrote, in 1887, for further inforuuition, and Captain Carpenter replied : 

 " The Argynnis Cmyenterii were collected on Taos Peak, about 12,000 to 1.3,000 

 feet elevation. I saw several others at same time. I had collected the preceding 

 year, in Colorado, above timber line, without seeing it." On reading this, I 

 wrote Prof. F. H. Snow, who has collected butterflies extensively and during 

 several seasons in New Mexico, Colorado, and Arizona, to ask if he had ever seen 

 this butterth", or Cyhele, in those regions. To which he replied that he had not, 

 but had never been on Taos Peak. I have also inquired of every person I knew 

 of as having collected among the high peaks of Colorado, Messrs. Bruce, Snow, 

 Mead, Nash, particularly, but no one had seen the species in that State. Just so 

 as to Arizona. The case therefore is peculiar. A colony of a stricth' northern 

 butterfly is evidently imprisoned on the summit of a lofty mountain far to the 

 southwest. Tn New England and New York, as well as in Virginia, Cyhele does 

 not fly at even moderate elevations, but in the lowlands ; on the higher ground it 

 is replaced by Aphrodite. If this colony on Taos Peak could descend, we may be 

 sure they would do so. That they do not shows that either the climate forbids 

 or their food plant is wanting. Violets are conunon plants among the mountains 

 of Colorado and Arizona, and both States are remarkably rich in species and 

 individuals of Argynnis. The conditions are plainly unfavorable to the spread of 

 Cyhele to the soutli and southwest, and that it has not done so is the more singu- 

 lar, inasmuch as the largest and handsomest examples are those found near the 

 southern limit. Probably it cannot live or perpetuate its kind on the hot sandy 

 soil of the extreme south, or tlie burning plains of Texas. We may infer that 

 this colony in New Mexico was cut off from the main body when the climate 

 was changing, and the species was retreating to the north, after the manner so 

 graphically described by Messrs. Grote and Scudder in the case of Chionobas 

 Semidea, a species which was left stranded on the summit of the White Moun- 

 tains of New Hampshire. 



These specimens of Carpentcr'd in coloration as well os size most nearly re- 

 semble their congeners from the extreme east of New England, and differ widely 

 from western examples. 



DESCRIPTION' OF THE PREPARATORY STAGES OF CYBELE. 



Egg. — Conoidal, truncated, and depressed at top, broad at base, the breadth 

 equal to the height ; marked by about eighteen prominent, vertical, slightly 

 wavy ribs, half of which extend from base to summit, and form around the latter 

 a serrated rim ; the others end irregularly at two thirds to three quarters the 



