The Butterfly Book: A Popular Guide to a Knowledge of the Butterflies of North AmericaHolland, W. J. (William Jacob)
Science
The Butterfly Book: A Popular Guide to a Knowledge of the Butterflies of North America
Holland, W. J. (William Jacob)
Butterflies -- North America
_Butterfly._--This familiar insect needs no description. It is well
known to every boy in the north temperate zone. It is one of the
commonest as well as one of the most beautiful species of the tribe. A
rare aberration in which the yellow border invades the wing nearly to
the middle, obliterating the blue spots, is sometimes found. The author
has a fine example of this "freak."
The eggs are laid in clusters upon the twigs of the food-plant in spring
(see p. 5, Fig. 11). There are at least two broods in the Northern
States. The caterpillars feed on willows, elms, and various species of
the genus _Populus_.
Genus PYRAMEIS, Doubleday
_Butterfly._--The wings in their neuration approach closely to the
preceding genus, but are not angulate, and the ornamentation of the
under side tends to become ocellate, or marked by eye-like spots, and in
many of the species is ocellate.
_Egg._--The egg is broadly ovoid, being much like the egg of the genus
_Vanessa_.
_Caterpillar._--The caterpillar in its mature form is covered with
spines, but these are not relatively as large as in _Vanessa_, and are
not as distinctly branching.
_Chrysalis._--The chrysalis approaches in outline the chrysalis of the
preceding genus, and is only differentiated by minor structural
peculiarities.
The genus includes only a few species, but some of them have a wide
range, _Pyrameis cardui_ being almost cosmopolitan, and having a wider
distribution than any other known butterfly.
(1) =Pyrameis atalanta=, Linnæus, Plate XLIII, Fig. 4, ♂; Plate III,
Fig. 35, _larva_; Plate IV, Figs. 52, 53, 55, _chrysalis_ (The Red
Admiral).
This familiar butterfly, which is found throughout North America,
Europe, northern Asia, and Africa, needs no description beyond what is
furnished in the plates. Expanse, 2.00 inches. The food-plants are
_Humulus_, _Boehmeria_, and _Urtica_.
[Illustration FIG. 97.--Neuration of the genus _Pyrameis_.]
(2) =Pyrameis huntera=, Plate I, Fig. 2, ♂; Plate XXXIII, Fig. 6, ♂,
_under side_; Plate III, Fig. 34, _larva_; Plate IV, Figs. 54, 63, 64,
_chrysalis_ (Hunter's Butterfly).
_Butterfly._--Marked much like the following species, but easily
distinguished at a glance by the two large eye-like spots on the under
side of the hind wings. Expanse, 2.00 inches.
_Early Stages._--These have been frequently described, and are in part
well depicted in Plates III and IV. The food-plants are cudweed
(_Gnaphalium_) and _Antennaria_.
Hunter's Butterfly ranges from Nova Scotia to Mexico and Central America
east of the Sierras.
(3) =Pyrameis cardui=, Linnæus, Plate I, Fig. 1, ♂; Plate III, Fig. 37,
_larva_; Plate IV, Figs. 60-62, _chrysalis_ (The Painted Lady; The
Thistle-butterfly).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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