444 The Moths and Butterflies 



coloring, as grayish blue, lilac-blue, purple-blue, etc., in number and distinct- 

 ness of the small black spots, but only an expert can determine the 

 species. 



Less in number of species and perhaps not quite so familiar are the 

 "coppers" with orange, red-brown or dark-brown wings conspicuously 

 spotted with black. Fig. 4 of PI. X shows the color, markings, and size 

 of a typical "copper," Heodes hypophlceas, "one of the commonest butter- 

 flies in the United States." Most of the other coppers have, however, hardly 

 as bright-red a ground color on the fore wings, some being really somber. 

 Most of them, too, are a little larger than hypophlaas. A species patterned 

 and colored much like hypophlceas, but a half larger, is Chrysophanus thoe, 

 found in the Atlantic states and west to the Rocky Mountains. The har- 

 vester, Feniseca tarquinius, small, with bright orange-yellow above spotted 

 with black and mottled gray and brown underneath, is a common species 

 all through the eastern states west to the Mississippi River; its larva feeds 

 on the woolly plant-lice like the alder blight, apple-tree aphid, etc. 



'The hair-streaks, mostly belonging to the genus Thecla, have short narrow 

 lines or streaks on the under sides of the wings, and are usually provided 

 with one or more delicate little "tails" on the hind wings. They vary in 

 color from a dull brown to a splendid glancing blue or blue-green. They 

 usually have one or more reddish spots at the base of the "tails" and the 

 under sides of the hind wings are often greenish or parti-colored. Thecla 

 halesus, the "great purple hair-streak" (PI. V, Fig. 9), is our largest 

 species, and is found in the southern half of the country. Like the blues 

 the hair-streaks are very difficult to classify to species; indeed professional 

 entomologists are not at all satisfied with our present systematic knowledge 

 of the Lycaenidae. 



In the extreme southwest are found rather rarely the few species of 

 "metal-marks," Lemonias and Calephelis, black and reddish checkered 

 Lycaenids, which occur in this country. Sometimes, as in L. virgulti, the 

 wings are spotted with white. The vernacular name is derived from a few 

 small lead-colored or pearly-white spots near the outer margin of the wings. 

 The tiny metal-mark, Calephilis canius, expanding only inch, and with 

 the reddish-brown wings spotted with small steely-blue markings, comes 

 as far north as Virginia. 



A smaller family than the Hesperidae or Lycaenidae, but with numerous 

 better-known members, is the Pieridae, the whites, yellows, and orange- 

 tips. Because the larvae of several species feed on cabbage and other 

 cruciferous plants, the unhappy name of cabbage-butterflies is sometimes 

 applied to them. The common whites and yellows are the most familiar 

 of roadside butterflies, but of the sixty species composing the family in this 

 country, only half a dozen occur in the northeastern states, the south and 



