HACKBERRY BUTTERFLIES. 607 



4. Bachmann's Libythea. 

 Libythea bachmanni Kirtland. 



This remarkable looking diurnal, appearing as if suouted, from the 

 very long porrect palpi, so far as we now know, feeds exclusively upon 

 Celtis in its larval state. The butterfly expands about If inches. It is 

 brownish-black above, the apex of front wings quadrate, the margin 

 slightly sinuate. There are three white spots on the apical third of the 

 wiug, the basal spot the largest and oblique. At the base of the wing 

 are three large reddish or fulvous blotches, one of which occupies most 

 of the discal cell. Beneath, the wings are brownish, the apex tinted 

 with lilac, the apical white spots repeated as well as the fulvous blotch 

 in the cell. The hind wings have a fulvous band behind the middle, 

 and are lilaceous beneath. 



Its life "history was partially worked up by Mr. W. H. Edwards in 

 Butterflies of North America (Vol. ii, Part I, 1874), and subsequently 

 more fully, by the same author, in the Canadian Entomologist (Vol. xiii, 

 1881, page 226), and from these the following abstract is largely drawn. 



It is quite common in the Atlantic States, where its food-plant is 

 abundant, and specimens have been captured in Canada. 



It is more rare in the Mississippi Valley, but occurs as far west as 

 Arizona. I have found it, as has also Mr. Schwarz, tolerably abundant 

 in Texas, the larva feeding on the leaves of Celtis. 



The oblate-spheroid, pale-green egg has eighteen or twenty narrow 

 but prominent ribs, terminating before reaching the summit and crossed 

 by many striae. 



Mr. Edwards says : 



The eggs seem to be nearly always laid od the tender terminal leaves of the branch. 

 Usually one egg is laid at the end of a branch, in one of the forks on the leaf stem, 

 but I have seen two eggs on same stem, and occasionally an egg laid on the under 

 aide and middle of a leaf. The young larviB on hatching ascend to the extremity of 

 one of the leaves and remain there stripping the sides, leaving the midrib untouched, 

 whence it is easy to find them. They eat their way out of the egg a little below the 

 tip, but do not eat the egg-shell after emerging, and the empty shell has often guided 

 me to the whereabouts of the young caterpillar. 



It will be unnecessary to repeat here Mr. Edwards's description of the 

 larval changes, but I reproduce his description of the full-grown larva 

 and chrysalis : 



Mature larva. — Seven-tenths to nine-tenths inch ; cylindrical, thickened at seg- 

 ments 3 and 4, the dorsum of last segment abruptly curved down to the end ; color 

 dark green, the lower side and also feet and legs pale green ; each segment four times 

 creased transversely, and on the flat ridges so caused are rows, one to each, of small 

 tubercular flattened points, pale or whitish yellow ; from 2 to 13 a white stripe along 

 base, just over the spiracles, and above this the ground is yellowish for a little way ; 

 a mediodorsal yellow line and sometimes a fine line on middle of side; yellow tuber- 

 culated points over the legs, in arcs of from 3 to 6 ; on foremost ridge of third seg- 



