"I have found them in several localities, always in some numbers, but
nowhere more abundant than in a little wooded glen in Webster. Here a
scattering group of tall pines, a few thick hemlocks, and a young
growth of miscellaneous deciduous trees fill up the space between two
rather steep banks. A small trout brook follows close by one of these
banks, and near the lower end of the glen, in a space kept clear of
underbrush by the overshadowing influence of the pines and hemlocks,
is a little spring, the overflow from which keeps the ground moist for
some space on each side of the channel which it follows to the brook.
This is the great meeting place of these butterflies; here they may be
seen at almost any time in the day except in the early morning--when
they seek the outskirts of the woods--until the shades of evening
render their flitting forms indistinguishable. Half-way up the bank on
one side, half shrouded in the dense growth of underbrush which is
springing up around it, is an old apple tree upon which the sapsuckers
work yearly. The wounded limbs, dripping with sap, are frequented by
many forms of insect life, most noticeable among them this butterfly,
and such refreshment added to the moisture which they suck from the
margin of the spring is all that I have ever seen them partake."
=The Eyed Brown=
_Satyrodes canthus_
For delicacy of gray-brown color tones few butterflies can compare
with this exquisite creature. It seems indeed to have succeeded in a
modest attempt to obliterate itself, for even when the spread wings
are placed against a clear white background they can scarcely be
called conspicuous and it is very probable that when the butterfly is
at rest in its native haunts, with wings closed together so that only
the very delicate light brown color-tones of the under surface are
revealed, it actually becomes invisible.
The upper surface of the wings is broadly washed with a gray-brown
color which runs into a suggestion of a lighter band near the outer
margin of the front pair. The upper surface of the hind wings is
almost uniformly washed with this same brown color which is
interrupted only by very fine, double lines at the outer margin and a
sub-marginal row of delicate _ocelli_ which are larger than the
somewhat similar sub-marginal row of eye-spots on the front wings. The
under surface is much lighter in color, with distinct striations
extending across the main surface of both wings from front to back and
with some very attractive _ocelli_ arranged as a sub-marginal series
each with a central white eye.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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