118 BUTTERFLIES 



life-history of the species in different latitudes. The 

 butterfly is found in much the same situations as the 

 other Fritillaries, flying over meadows and along the 

 borders of woods. 



The Diana Fritillary 



Argynnis diana 



This magnificent butterfly differs from the other Fritil- 

 laries in the fact that the females are so unlike the males 

 that only a skilled naturalist would even guess that they 

 are related. Both sexes are rather rare and are found only 

 in a comparatively narrow range extending from West 

 Virginia to Missouri, northward to Ohio and Indiana, and 

 southward to Georgia and Arkansas. 



This species was first described by Cramer a long time 

 ago from specimens of the male sex. It was later described 

 by Say and other writers all of whom saw only the males. 

 The other sex was first recognized by William H. Edwards, 

 whose account of its discovery as given in his splendid 

 work on the Butterflies of North America is worth quot- 

 ing: 



"No mention is made of the female by any author,'* 

 wrote Mr. Edwards, "and it seems to have been unknown 

 till its discovery by me in 1864 in Kanawha County, 

 West Virginia. On the 20th August, I saw, for the 

 first time, a male hovering about the flowers of the 

 iron- weed {Vernonia fasciculata), and succeeded in taking 

 it. Two days afterwards, in same vicinity, while breaking 

 my way through a dense thicket of the same weed, hoping 

 to find another Diana, I came suddenly upon a large black 



