272 



LEPIDOPTERA. 



Fig. 100. 



Fig. 101 



Twice a year our pastures and road-sides are enlivened 

 by great numbers of the small yellow Philodice butterfly 



(^Colias Philodice of Go- 

 dart). (Fig. 100, male; 

 Fig. 101, female.) They 

 begin to appear towards 

 the end of April, are 

 common throughout the 

 month of May, after which 

 no more are seen tiU near 

 the end of July, when a 

 new brood begins to come 

 forth, and some of them 

 continue till late in the 

 autumn. Their wings are 

 yellow, with a black hind 

 border, which in the fe- 

 males is quite broad on 

 the fore wings, and spotted with yellow ; the fringes of the 

 wings, the antennae, and the shanks are red ; the fore wings 

 have a small narrow black spot on both sides near the mid- 

 dle ; the hind wings have a round orange-colored spot in 

 the middle of the upper side, which on the under side is 

 replaced by a large and a small silvery spot close together, 

 and surrounded by a rust-colored ring. 



The males are generally smaller than the females. The 

 caterpillars live upon clover, medicago, and lucerne, and I 

 have occasionally found them on pea-vines. They are green, 

 slightly downy, paler or yellowish at the sides, and grow to 

 the length of about one inch and a half. They suspend 

 themselves to the stems of plants by the tail and a trans- 

 verse loop, in the same way as the preceding species. The 

 chrysalis (Fig. 102) is straw-colored, not angulated at the 

 sides, with a slight prominence over the thorax, and the 

 anterior extremity ends in a short and blunt point. The 

 genus Colias, to which the Philodice butterfly belongs, is 



