Puhl. 5. VI. 1913. ARGYNNIS. By Dr. Th. Lehivian^t. 409 



from ^ in the pp.ler ground-colour and the deep chocoLn.te-broA\'n, occasionally nearly black, shading of the inner 

 half of both wings. All the markings of the upper surface much heavier than in o- Un the under surface the 

 sexes differ but little, the colouring of the $ being somewhat duller. Expanse: 3,0" — 4,0". — Egg conoidal, 

 truncated, shorter than broad, honey-yellow ; the vertical ribs partly extending to the apex, partly ending at 

 ^3 of the distance from the base. The caterpillar, when first hatched, is greenish, mottled with brown, later 

 chocolate-brown, after the last moult velvety-black, beneath chocolate-coloured. Head blackish, shaded with 

 chestnut-brown behind. The body is ornamented with 6 rows of shining black branching spines marked with 

 orange-red at the base. In the North the eggs are mostly deposited in August; the young larvae go in lethargy 

 immediately after being hatched from the eggs, hibernating, and feeding to maturity in early spring; in the 

 southern States, however, they often hibernate after several moults ; this probably accounts for the early butter- 

 flies one occasionally sees, from which a second brood may result; like all the other known larva^e of Ar- 

 gynnis, they only feed at night. Pupa dark brown, shaded with reddish-brown or slaty-grey, sometimes glossy, 

 sometimes dead leaf -like, a trifle compressed laterally; head and wing cases very prominent. The pupal 

 state lasts about 16 days. — ctjbele ranges over the northern and middle Atlantic States of North America, 

 from Nova Scotia and Maine, whei'e it is rather scarce, southward to Virginia and North Carolina (Macon Co.), 

 westward to Illinois and along the Mississippi Valley to Nebraska. Scitdder draws the line of its western limits 

 through the middle of Dakota and Kansas. In the North it is rather abundant in June and July, stra.y 

 specimens appearing already in the middle of May; one meets it until September on blossoming clover- 

 fields, in gardens and along roads, eagerly visiting the blossoms of thistles, Asclepias tuberosa and other 

 flowers, cyhele has often been confounded with aphrodite, indeed northern specimens are not much larger, with 

 the under surface, especially of the $$, genera.lly very dusky brown, whereas those from Virginia are very 

 large, with heavy black markings above and the under surface of the hindwings reddish-brown. In the West 

 (Nebraska) its colour is brighter, more red, the under side very light, near to cinnamon-red. — As A. 

 carpenter! Edw. we find described a dwarf variety of cyhele first discovered by Lieut. W. L. Carpenter on Taos carpenferi. 

 Peak in northern New Mexico, above the limits of tree-growth, at an altitude of about 9500 ft. It is very 

 similar to small-sized specimens found on tbeNorth-East coast, in Maine and Nova Scotia, but differs consi- 

 derably from western specimens, as f. i. those from Nebraska. Since cyhele has not been observed either 

 elsewhere in New Mexico or in Colorado, it seems a^s though this really northern species forms an isolated 

 colony in this remote south-western j^art of the Rockies. In the East, from New York to Virginia, cyhele 

 is confined to the plains, being replaced at higher altitudes by nphrodife. That this tribe which is isolated on 

 Mt. Taos does not descend to a lower altitude in order to migrate farther North, is to be explained either by 

 the difference of the climate or the absence of the food-plant ; one may assume that at the time when a change 

 took place in the climate, carpenferi was cut off from the main body, very much like Oeneis semida which, as 

 Grote and Scudder have shown, were in the East stranded on the summit of Mt. Washington in New Hamp- 

 shire, where it still exists as an isolated colony, the species being otherwise at home in Labrador and in the Rocky 

 Mts. — bartschi Reijj is an interesting aberrative from of cyhele having all the spots and other markings hartscM. 

 both of the upper and lower surface confluescent so as to form more or less complete bands, all of which, ho- 

 wever, aside from the somewhat paler shade of the upper surface, retain their normal colour. This change 

 has mainly affected the distal half of both wings. Here we find at the same time all the veins aborted, in 

 part even completely absent, whereas in the inner half, especially of the hindwing, where the markings are 

 more normal, also the veins are complete and normal (peroneuric aberration). Hand in hand with this 

 reduction of the veins we observe a modification of the shape of the wings, the forewings being much narrower, 

 the hindwings more elongate, and oval than in normal specimens. On the under surface of the hindwings the 

 submarginal band is, in contradistinction to typical cyhele, very narrow aiid faded. This aberration has been 

 repeatedly taken in recent years near Roxbury in the State of Massachussetts, where it does not seem to be 

 very scarce. — baal Newcomb is the name given to a melanotic form of the $. haul. 



A. aphrodite F. (= daphnis Mart., cy}3ris Edw.) (85 d) is. like alcestis, cipris and halcyone, by some aphrodite. 

 authors treated as a form of cyhele; but it is considerably smaller, and easy to distinguish by having the 

 yellow submarginal band on the mider surface of the hindwing nnich narrow'er, frequently, especially in ,^. even 

 wholly wanting, being replaced by the brown ground-colour. The ^ is, in comparison with other species 

 of this group, much smaller in proportion than the $; its ground-colour is brighter reddish fulvous than in 

 cyhele, obscured with much less brown at the base of the wings; the markings more delicate; the median 

 band is formed of small crescents, separated by wide spaces and nearly obsolete on the costal margin. Under- 

 neath the forewing has the base and inner margin brighter red; the silvery marginal and apical spots are very 

 decided, while in cyhele they are usually wanting or indicated by a few scales only. Basal area of hindwing 

 mostly brown, the yellow submarginal band more or less encroached upon by the dark ground-colour. 2 



V 52 



