s 



EREBIA III. 



This, therefore, is the complete history of an Erebia from egg to imago, and, 

 so far as I know, the first such that has ever been pubhshed of one of the genus. 

 To get drawings of the several stages, it was necessary to send them to Mrs. 

 Peart, at Philadelphia, through the mails, some five hundred miles, with risk of 

 loss or damage. Indeed, the second larva was in Philadelphia in its last stage, 

 and being returned to me, imperfectly pupated on the waj-, and died. 



The genus Erebia comprises many sjjecies, nearly all of which are European 

 and Asiatic. Dr. Staudinger, in 1871, enumerated forty-eight, many of them 

 boreal, others alpine, the latter found as fur to the south as the Pyrenees, Alps. 

 Caucasus, and Himalayas. Great Britain is credited with three species, and, in 

 Buckler's Larvaj of British Butterflies, Vol.1, on Plate VI, are figured the mature 

 larva and pupa of one of these, E. BluncUna, and the young larva of another, E. 

 Cassiope. In the text, Mr. Buckler relates that he raised the larva of Blandina 

 from the egg, obtaining pupa and imago ; and a brief description of the several 

 stages is given, that of the larval being imperfect, as nothing is said of the sev- 

 eral moults. Nor is it told how the larva pupated. Nevertheless, the plate rep- 

 resents the pupa I'esting nearly upright on a tuft of grass, but not at all inclosed. 

 It looks very much like the pupa of Epipsodea. So an incomjalete description is 

 given of the stages of Cassiojje, but how pupation took place is not told, nor is 

 there a figure to show. The young larva as figured has forked tails, and there- 

 fore, I apprehend, it must have been drawn after the first moult. 



In North America are eight or nine species, three at least of which are said to 

 be old world, namely, Tyndarus, Dlscoidalls, and Disci. One species heretofore 

 erroneously credited to North America, on the authority of Doubleday, E. 

 Vesagus, belongs to the Andes, in South America. 



The group is a very interesting one, and together with Chionobas, and some 

 others, embraces those members of the Rhopalocera, or Diurnals, which are near- 

 est the Heterocera, or Moths, allied to them in important characters in each of 

 the four stages. The resemblances of the larvte and pupfB are j^articularly strik- 

 ing. The latter are destitute of cremastral hooks in Erebia, in Cliionobas, even 

 of bristles, and pupation takes place, sometimes on the bare ground, sometimes in 

 or on the sod, in one case, as we have seen, in an imperfect cocoon ; sometimes in 

 a real cocoon beneath the surface of the ground ; or the larva goes into the 

 ground and pupates naked, in a cavity made by the movements of its body, after 

 the manner of nearly all the Sphingida3. Before this Volume closes, I propose 

 to illustrate these phases, in several species, and to make it plain that in the ar- 

 rangement of the Diurnals the Satyrinse are naturally at the bottom of the sei^ies, 

 instead of at the top, where some recent systematists have, without sufficient 

 ground, placed them. 



