PHYCIODES I., II. 
British Columbia, and 52° in Labrador, at least as far south as Mexico and the 
Gulf States, and from the Atlantic to Montana and Colorado. I am not aware 
that it has been taken in the United States west of the Rocky Mountains, but 
Mr. Crotch found it in British Columbia, at Lake Lahache. From Labrador and 
Anticosti Mr. Couper brought many examples. Like the allied species, Tharos 
frequents meadows and open country, flying slowly, with tremulous motion, for 
shoit distances and from flower to flower. In the early summer the males as¬ 
semble by hundreds about wet places, keeping company, in West Virginia, with 
Nycteis, and in the Gulf States with Pliaon and Vesta. It is one of the most 
variable of species, and besides the two distinct forms, winter and summer, under 
which it manifests itself, has a tendency to branch off into varieties and sub- 
varieties, several of the first being well characterized. This peculiarity was no¬ 
ticed by Drury, more than a hundred years ago, and he says, “ In short, nature 
forms such a variety of this species that it is difficult to set bounds, or to know 
all that belongs to it. ’ Both Pliaon and Batesii appear to have formerly passed 
as varieties of Tharos. In 1868,1 described, as a distinct species, another of the 
hitherto supposed varieties, calling it Marcia. It seemed to be a wide-spread 
species, flying earlier in the season than the typical Tharos , and differed from it 
m many respects. But there were such resemblances also to Tharos that it was 
not possible to determine its specific value, unless the butterflies could be bred 
from the egg, and as yet the food-plant of the larvae, and the larvae themselves, 
of both Marcia and Tharos were unknown. But, in 1875, the food-plant was dis¬ 
covered by Mr. Mead. He states, in Can. Ent. VII., p. 161, that he planted in a 
large box specimens of all the common Compositae which he could bring to¬ 
gether, covered the box with gauze, and introduced a number of females of this 
species. A few days later, on examining the leaves, he found eggs deposited on 
Aster Nova-Angliaa, and on no other plant. Thereupon he transferred such fe¬ 
males as were still living to a smaller box with fresh asters, and obtained several 
clusters of eggs. This hajDpened in the month of July, near the last of the 
month, at Hunter, N. Y., among the Catskill Mountains, and as I reached the 
same place at that time, I saw the arrangement and received from Mr. Mead a 
cluster of the eggs. Others I obtained myself by confining the females in bags 
over the aster stems. The larvae from these eggs were brought by me to Coal- 
burgh, and as I was some days on the way, I found that they would eat the 
leaves of any species of aster, even German asters from the garden. And be¬ 
yond these plants I now know of none upon which they will feed. After pass¬ 
ing two moults, and about 4th September, the larvas all became lethargic, and 
gathered in cluster on the cover of the glass in which I kept them. Two weeks 
later, part of them were again active and fed for a day or two, when these once 
