BUTTERFLIES are not only among the 

 most attractive of Nature's subjects, but 

 among the most abundant and most 

 readily captured. 



Alan}^ have collected them in their youth, 

 and some have thus started on the path that 

 leads to serious study in Natural Histor}^ 

 Many more admire these bright-colored sprites 

 flitting b}^ the roadside and over the fields. 

 To all these this leaflet is offered. It is an 

 attempt to provide everyone with a simple 

 means of identifying our most common butter- 

 flies, or more strictly speaking, those of our 

 eastern states, and to afford a little information 

 regarding them. And readers ma}^ feel re- 

 lieved to learn that the caterpillars of butter- 

 flies, and even of our most beautiful moths, 

 are rarely harmful — the greatest damage to 

 foliage is done b}^ the larvae of dull-colored 

 moths as if out of spite for the sombre dress 

 Nature has bestowed upon them. 



Frederic A. Lucas 



Direct Of 

 American Museum of Natural History 

 June, 1914 



