,.o^-» 



164 THE BUTTERFLIES OF THE WEST COAST 



196. Melitaea Perse. 



Plate XX; Figure 196. 



Fig. 196, Male, Southern Arizona, 1880? H. K. Morrison. 

 This is another, and the last, of those Mexican species that 

 sometimes come over the border into America, and are found 

 along the line in Arizona. 



Genus PHYCIODES. 



This genus is similar to the Melitaja, and at one time the Phyci- 

 odes were classed in with the MeHtaeas. The Phyciodes are all of 

 them about the same size, none very small nor any large, and all 

 look much alike, as you see by Plate XXI. 



All the species are fond of feeding on flowers. They are of 

 gentle flight, stopping often to rest. When resting on the ground 

 or on twigs they have a habit of holding their wings out flat and 

 waving them up and down, as if fanning themselves. 



Nearly all of the species are valley and foothill inhabitants, only 

 one of them going up into the mountains to any great height. 



The sexes are so dissimilar that the ornamentation aff^ords usu- 

 ally sufficient identification ; the more technical points are similar 

 to the Melitaea genus. 



The food-plants are not very well understood, and are noted in 

 the species paragraphs, wherever known, as the known plants are 

 of widely separated genera, in which point the Phyciodes are 

 somewhat out of the ordinary, as they should apparently use plants 

 of a particular order, as do the MeHtaeas. But their ways are not 

 as the Melitaeas' ways. 



197. Phyciodes Nycteis. 



^V*"" Plate XXI ; Figure 197. 



Fig. 197, Male, underside, Minnesota, 1880; H. Strecker. 

 The figure is a male of the eastern species Nycteis, that flies 

 from New England to Maryland, and west to the Rocky Moun- 

 tains, not being known to the westward of that range. It is shown 

 here to show the diiTerence between it and the Western form taken 

 by me at Pasco, Eastern Washington ; this latter being shown at 

 Fig. a, following. 



