GRAPTA II. 
and Satyrus are known and settle ttie question of identity between either of these 
species and O album. The larva of Comma is illustrated in our plate. That of 
Satyrus is described by Mr. It. H. Stretch, as “dead black with a greenish white 
dorsal band from third to last segment,” and he has furnished me with an ad- 
mirable drawing which justifies his description. 
On the other hand the larva of C album is described by Mr. Westwood as be- 
ing “ of a brownish red color, the back being reddish in front with the hinder part 
white,” and the accompanying plate represents the first six segments as red, the re- 
mainder white, and is altogether quite unlike any known American species. 
Neither Faunus nor Comma are subject to any wide variation, as I can assert 
from a long familiarity with both species, nor do the specimens of Satyrus that I 
have seen, numbering perhaps twenty, vary to any greater degree. On the other 
hand, C album varies so as to resemble not only these three distinct species, but 
has an overplus of variation sufficient to include resemblances to as many more. 
Unquestionably these several species and all others of the genus have sprung from 
one ancient form which may not unlikely have been near one of the many phases 
of the present C album. But one variety after another became permanent, each 
throwing off new varieties of its own, in time also to become permanent, till now 
we have many groups all allied but all distinctly separated. We have in North 
America at least nine well marked species of Grapta divisible into four groups, 
namely, that of Progne, of Silenus, of Comma and of Faunus. 
There is a difference of opinion about the value of this genus, many European 
lepidopterists considering it not properly separable from Vanessa. But if ‘‘the co- 
descendants of the same form must be kept together in one group separate from the 
co-descendants of any other form,” (Darwin’s Descent, 1 p. 181.) then no genus is 
better founded than Grapta. The several species differ decidedly from the true 
Vanessans not only in the shape of the wings, but so far as is known in the pre- 
paratory stages. The larvae are solitary, not gregarious, as are the true Vanessans. 
This difference of itself is generic and there could be no surer token of distinct 
ancestry. 
