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minutely dotted with white, with a row of eight dark brick-red spots on the top of the back. The head is black and rough with projecting points; the spines, of which there are six or seven on each segment, except the first, are black, stiff, and branched, and the intermediate legs are reddish. When fully grown they measure an inch and three quarters in length, and appear very formidable with their thorny armature, which is doubtless intended to defend them from their enemies. It was formerly supposed that they were venomous, and capable of inflicting dangerous wounds; and within my remembrance many persons were so much alarmed on this account as to cut down all the poplar trees around their dwellings. This alarm was unfounded; for, although there are some caterpillars that have the power of inflicting venomous wounds with their spines and hairs, this is not the case with those of the Antiopa butterfly. The only injury which can be laid to their charge, is that of despoiling of their foliage some of our most ornamental trees, and this is enough to induce us to take all proper measures for exterminating the insects, short of destroying the trees that they infest. I have sometimes seen them in such profusion on the willow and elm, that the limbs bent under their weight; and the long leafless branches, which they had stripped and deserted, gave sufficient proof of the voracity of these caterpillars. The chrysalis is of a dark brown color, with large tawny spots around the pointed tubercles on the back. The butterflies come forth in eleven or twelve days after the insects have entered upon the chrysalis state, and this occurs in the beginning of July. A second brood of caterpillars is produced in August, and they pass through all their changes before winter.

Vanessa Interrogationis. F. Semicolon butterfly.

Wings on the upper side tawny orange, with brown spots running together on the hinder part, and with black spots in the middle; hind wings in the male most often black above, except at the base, and sometimes of this color in the other sex also; the edges and the tails glossed with reddish white; under side of the wings in some rust-red, in others marbled

with light and dark brown, glossed with reddish white, and with a pale gold-colored semicolon on the middle of the hinder pair. Expands from 21 to 22 inches, or more.

The paly gold character beneath the hind wings has much more nearly the shape of a semicolon than of a note of interrogation; for which reason I have called this the semicolon butterfly, instead of translating the specific name. It first appears in May, and again in August and September, and is frequently seen on the wing, in warm and sunny places, till the middle of October. The caterpillars live on the American elm and lime trees, and also on the hop-vine, and on the latter they sometimes abound to such a degree as totally to destroy the produce of the plant. In the latter part of August the hop-vine caterpillars come to their full growth, and suspend themselves beneath the leaves and stems of the plant, and change to chrysalids. This fact affords a favorable opportunity for destroying the insects in this their stationary and helpless stage, at some loss, however, of the produce of the vines, which, when the insects have become chrysalids, should be cut down, stripped of the fruit that is sufficiently ripened, and then burnt. There is probably an early brood of caterpillars in June or July, but I have not seen any on the hop-vine before August, the former are therefore confined to the elm and other plants, in all probability. The caterpillar is brownish, variegated with pale yellow, or pale yellow variegated with brown, with a yellowish line on each side of the body; the head is rust-red, with two blackish branched spines on the top; and the spines of the body are pale yellow or brownish and tipped with black. The chrysalis is ashen brown, with the head deeply notched, and surmounted by two conical ears, a long and thin nose-like prominence on the thorax, and eight silvery spots on the back. The chrysalis state usually lasts from eleven to fourteen days; but the later broods are more tardy in their transformations, the butterfly sometimes not appearing in less than twenty-six days after the change to the chrysalis. Great numbers of the chrysalids are annually destroyed by little maggots within them, which, in due time, are transformed to tiny four-winged flies (Pteromalus Vanessa), which make

their escape by eating little holes through the sides of the chrysalis. They are ever on the watch to lay their eggs on the caterpillars of this butterfly, and are so small as easily to avoid being wounded by the branching spines of their victims.

Vanessa Comma. Comma butterfly.

Upper side tawny orange; fore wings bordered behind and spotted with black; hind wings shaded behind with dark brown, with two black spots on the middle, and three more in a transverse line from the front edge, and a row of bright orange-colored spots before the hind margin; hind edges of the wings powdered with reddish white; under side marbled with light and dark brown, the hinder wings with a silvery comma in the middle. Expands from 21 to 23 inches.

This butterfly very closely resembles the white C. ( C. album) of Europe, for which it has probably been mistaken. On a close and careful comparison of several specimens of both together, I am satisfied that the American Comma is a distinct species, and the hinder edges of the wings, which are not so deeply indented, will at once serve to distinguish it. I have therefore now named and described it for the first time. The caterpillar lives upon the hop, and, as nearly as I can recollect, has a general resemblance to that of the semicolon butterfly. The chrysalis is brownish gray, or white variegated with pale brown, and ornamented with golden spots; there are two conical ear-like projections on the top of the head, and the prominence on the thorax is shorter and thicker than that of the semicolon butterfly, and more like a parrot's beak in shape. The butterflies appear first in the beginning of May; I have obtained them from the chrysalids in the middle of July, and on the first of September.

Vanessa Progne. F. Progne butterfly.

Upper side tawny orange; fore wings bordered and spotted with black; hind wings blackish on the posterior half, with

Mr. Kirby, whose work on the insects of North America abounds in mistakes, has redescribed this old and well-known species under the name of Vanessa C. argenteum.

two black spots before the middle, and a row of small orangecolored spots before the hind margin; tails and posterior edges of the wings powdered with reddish white; under side gray, with fine blackish streaks, and an angular silvery character somewhat in the form of the letter L on the middle of the hind wings. Expands from 17 to 23 inches.

This butterfly appears in August, and probably also at other times. Though very much like the preceding in general appearance, it is readily distinguished from it by the darker color of the hind wings and the angular shape of the silvery character on their under side. This character is very slender, and is sometimes entirely wanting. I have raised the Progne and Comma butterflies from caterpillars which were so much alike, that I am not certain to which of them the following description belongs. These caterpillars were found on the American elm in August; they were pale yellow, with a reddish colored head, white branching spines tipped with black, and a row of four rusty spots on each side of the body. They were suspended on the twenty-first and twenty-second of August, changed to chrysalids within twenty-four hours, and were transformed to butterflies sixteen days afterwards. At another time a Progne butterfly was obtained from a caterpillar, which I neglected to describe, on the eighteenth of August, the chrysalis state having continued only eleven days. The chrysalis is brownish gray, with silvery spots on the back, a short, thick, and rounded nose-like prominence on the thorax, and the two conical double-pointed horns or ears on the head, the outer points very short, and the inner ones longer and curving inwards.

2. SKIPPERS. (Hesperiadæ.)

The butterflies of this tribe frequent grassy places, and low bushes and thickets, flying but a short distance at a time, with a jerking motion, whence they are called skippers by English writers. When they alight, they usually keep the hind wings extended horizontally, and the fore wings somewhat raised, but spreading a little, and not entirely closed, as in other butterflies; some of them, however, have all the wings spread open

when at rest, and there are others in which they are all elevated. Notwithstanding this difference in the position of the wings, the Hesperians all have certain characters in common, by which they are readily distinguished from other butterflies. Their bodies are short and thick, with a large head, and very prominent eyes; the feelers are short, almost square at the end, and thickly clothed with hairs, which give them a clumsy appearance; the antennæ are short, situated at a considerable distance from each other, and in most of these insects, with the knob at the end either curved like a hook, or ending with a little point bent to one side; the legs are six in number, and the four hinder shanks are armed with two pairs of spurs. Their caterpillars are somewhat spindle-shaped, or cylindrical in the middle, and tapering at each extremity, without spines, and generally naked or merely downy, with a very large head and a small neck. They are solitary in their habits, and many of them conceal themselves within folded leaves like the caterpillars of the thistle and nettle butterflies (Cynthia Cardui and Atalanta), and undergo their transformations within an envelope of leaves or of fragments of stubble gathered together with silken threads. Their chrysalids are generally conical or tapering at one end, and rounded, or more rarely pointed, at the other, never angular or ornamented with golden spots, but most often covered with a bluish white powder or bloom. They are mostly fastened by the tail and a few transverse threads, within some folded leaves, which are connected together by a loose internal web of threads, forming a kind of imperfect cocoon.

In the skippers, which Dr. Boisduval arranges under the name of Eudamus, the knobs of the antennæ are very long, gradually taper to a point, and are suddenly bent like a hook in the middle; the front edge of the fore wings, in the males, is doubled over; the hind wings are often tailed, or are furnished with a little projection on the hinder angle; the fringes are spotted; and all the wings are raised when at rest.

Eudamus Tityrus. F. Tityrus skipper.

Wings brown; first pair with a transverse semitransparent band across the middle, and a few spots towards the tip, of a

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