14 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 95 



localized communities may possess certain minor features by which 

 they may be distinguished ; nevertheless, this insect in Mexico as a 

 whole is singularly uniform. 



So far as we have been able to determine there are no variations of 

 geographical significance in this butterfly, and the named varieties are 

 therefore to be regarded as individual variants or " aberrations." 



HISTORY 



The first notice of this species was the publication by Dr. Jean 

 Alphonse Boisduval and Maj. John E. Le Conte in 1833 of an excellent 

 colored plate showing the imago, a caterpillar on one of the leaves of 

 a sprig of Breiveria aquatica, and a pupa. No text was published 

 in connection with the plate, which bore at the bottom the name 

 Eudaiiiits ccllns. 



The plate was a reproduction of a painting by John Al^bot, who 

 lived for nearly 20 years — from about 1790 to about 18 10 — at Jackson- 

 borough, Ga. Jacksonborough no longer exists, but in Abbot's time it 

 was an important town. It was confirmed as the county seat oi Scriven 

 (now Screven) County on February 15, 1799, and for more than 40 

 years the business of the county was mainly transacted there. But in 

 1847 the public buildings were removed to Sylvania, the present 

 county seat. This robbed Jacksonborough of all importance, and it 

 was soon abandoned. 



Jacksonborough was situated on Beaver Dam Creek near its junc- 

 tion with Brier Creek in the north-central part of Screven County, 

 roughly 7 miles north of Sylvania. Presumably Abbot's specimen 

 came from this locality, or its more or less immediate vicinity. The 

 butterfly has not since been reported from Screven County, and until 

 this year the caterpillar that he found has remained the only one 

 known. 



In 1837 Carl Geyer published a l)rief description of this species 

 under the name of Cccrops festus ( Papilio gentilis, Astycus Celebris) , 

 which was illustrated by figures in colors of the upper and under 

 sides. 



In the second volume of their " Genera of Diurnal Lepidoptera " 

 published in 1850-1852, Edward Doubleday and John Obadiah West- 

 wood listed this species under the name of Hesperia ccllus, with the 

 habitat United States. 



The Rev. Dr. John Gottlieb Morris, in his " Catalogue of the De- 

 scribed Lepidoptera of North America " prepared for the Smithsonian 

 Institution and published in May i860, listed Hesperia cellus, taking 



