134 



STARLIGHT AND SUNSHINE. 



already been bestowed upon another widely different class of 

 plants. This Philodice butterfly is one of our most accomplished 

 botanical authorities a botanist who knows beans, in very truth; 

 for where is the genus of the bean tribe of vegetation that it has 

 skipped in the choice of foster-plants for that future offspring? 

 Lima beans, scarlet-runners, peas, sweet-peas, wild -bean, indigo, 

 red clover, hop clover, white 

 clover, puss clover, medic, 

 medicago, lucern, melilot, 

 rattlebox, vetch, and ,/ 

 many more all of 

 the leguminous or 



bean tribe. 



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Here is a near 

 European relative of 

 this same butterfly which 

 feeds upon " Coronilla and 

 broom and other diadelphous 

 plants," and another allied spe- 

 cies that feeds upon Cytisus, all of 

 which our botany of course includes 

 der Legwninosie. It is interesting to 

 note further that certain other individ- 

 uals in this same butterfly tribe, Colias 



(exotic species in the heart of Brazil), continue the list among the 

 tropical Leguminosa ; all of which proves the close affinity be- 

 tween the animated winged genus, Colias, and the " winged " co- 

 rollas of the pea- blossomed flowers. 



In the agile white-banded "skipper" (Tityrus] we have an- 

 other remarkable illustration of discrimination among the same 

 order of plants, for this butterfly, like most of its tribe, is partial 

 to "a mess of beans," and are indeed discriminating "skippers" 

 of all but "pulse and pease." The curious, big-headed caterpillar 

 may be disclosed in its cocoon-like nest of leaves among the 



