GRAPTA I. 
which lie along the costal nervure, separated by a very small interval, and each 
edged by a velvety black line ; the third, along median nervure, illy-defined with¬ 
out such edging; the spot on disk of secondaries dead white, bent at right angles ; 
the lower limb straight, thick, abruptly sloping to a point by the cutting away of 
it> uppei side ; the upper branch narrower, slightly curved, nearly as wide at top 
as elsewhere and ending bluntly; fringes with the white area more extended 
than on upper side. 
Body above black, covered with ferruginous hairs, below black, sometimes 
with a gray shade ; legs gray-brown; palpi black at base and in front, with 
whitish hairs at sides, ferruginous at top ; aijtennse black above, fulvous below; 
club black, fulvous at tip. 
Female. — Expands from 2.1 to 2.3 inches. 
In shape very like the male; upper side dull yellow-fulvous, the spots large ; 
under side more brown than black, the extra-discal area to margin pretty uniform 
m shade, the ground being dark gray, nearly lost in the denseness of the brown 
streaks; sub-marginal points and crescents obsolescent; silver mark of same 
shape as in the male, often quite as heavy. 
Larva unknown. 
SiIenns is foimd in Western Oregon and in San Juan and Vancouver’s Islands, 
where it tlies in company with Satyrus. ' It may be readily distinguished by 
the general blackness of both surfaces, by the large size of the black spots on 
upper side, by the pbsolescence of the usual sub-marginal crescents on under 
side, and by the character of the silver spots. In this last respect and in shape 
of wings it is near Gracilis; in the deep fulvous color, Faunus ; in the sub-mar¬ 
ginal crescents of under side, Progne; but in important respects differs from 
each of these. 
1 lie genus Grapta is well represented on this continent, a greater number of 
species being already known than in the world beside. And as several are very 
local in their habit, it is highly probable that others remain still to be discovered 
Our knowledge of the butterflies of the entire Rocky Mountain district — except¬ 
ing Northern Colorado — and of the vast extent of territory to the Northwest 
and North, amounts as yet to a mere nothing, restricted literally to the scanty 
collections of the government surveying expeditions, and an occasional specimen 
hom some chance traveller. It is noticeable that the American Graptas show little 
tendency to run into varieties. In a series of an hundred Comma, or as many 
Faunas, all will be essentially alike, not differing between themselves to a greater 
degree than a number of Cardui or Atalanta, And in the case of those species 
that aie dimorphic, I find the two forms of each nowhere convergent. This is 
remarkable, because there is a general similarity between so many°of the species 
