While the butterflies of temperate North America show many examples of marvelous beauty and coloring, one must go to the tropics to see the culmination of what nature has done in painting the outstretched membranes of butterfly wings with gorgeous colors. The great butterfly tribes that swarm in tropical forests seldom reach our temperate clime, and even when they do they are likely to show only a suggestion of the splendid size and rich coloring to be seen farther south. The Zebra butterfly (_Heliconius charitonius_) belongs to one of these tropical tribes. It shows its affinities by its coloring and the curious shape of its wings. In most of our northern butterflies, the wings are about as long as they are wide, but in the tropical family, _Heliconidae_, they are very much longer than wide. This gives the insect an entirely different look from our common forms so that one recognizes it at once as a stranger within our gates. Indeed, it does not penetrate far into our region, being found commonly only in Florida and one or two other neighboring states, its principal home being in tropical America. The Zebra butterfly is well named. Across the brownish black wings there runs a series of yellow stripes, three on each front wing and one on each hind wing, with a sub-marginal row of white spots on each of the latter. The under surface is much like the upper, except that the coloring is distinctly paler. It is very variable in size: some specimens may be but two and a half inches across the expanded wings, while others are four inches. (_See plate, page 224._) The Zebra caterpillars feed upon the leaves of the passion flower. When full grown they are about an inch and a half long, whitish, more or less marked with brownish black spots arranged in transverse rows, and partially covered with longitudinal rows of barbed black spines. They change to chrysalids which are remarkable for their irregular shape, with two leaf-like projections on the head which the insect can move in a most curious fashion. One of the most notable things about this insect is the fact that the male butterflies are attracted to the chrysalids of the females even before the latter emerge. Many observers have reported upon this curious phenomenon and have recorded experiments demonstrating that it is a general habit with the species. _The Roosting Habits_