Brief guide to the commoner butterflies of the northern United States and Canada; being an introduction to a knowledge of their life-histories

Front matter

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Preface

During the preparation of a long-projected and still unpublished Manual of the Butterflies of North America, it occurred to me that when that was ready there would still be needed something less technical; something which should introduce to the young student the names and somewhat of the relationships and lives of our commoner butterflies; and that if such a guide were restricted to the commoner butterflies of the region where it would be most used, viz., our Northern States east of the Great Plains — much the same territory as was originally and wisely covered by Gray's Manual of Botany—the actual extent of the work would be so limited as to bring it within the reach of all, not alarm the beginner by its magnitude, and, because they are better known, permit a fuller account of their interesting life-histories.

I have accordingly selected the butterflies — less than a hundred of them — which would almost surely be met with by any industrious collector in the course of a year's or two years' work in the more populous Northern States and in Canada, and have here treated them as if they were the only ones found there. I have omitted many species which are common enough in certain restricted localities (such, for instance, as our White Mountain butterfly) and included only those which are common over wide areas. As the earlier stages of these insects are just as varied, as interest-

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ing, and as important as the perfect stage, descriptions are given of these under the guidance of the same principle, only such stages as would be more commonly met with being fully described, and the egg and earliest forms of caterpillar omitted as rarities and as also too difficult for the beginner's study. If, then, a young student can find nothing in this work to correspond with his particular capture, then he may rest assured that it is not one of the more common kinds, and he will have to go to the larger and more technical works to discover what it is. At any rate, he is likely to be pleased : either he has found out what it is and can thereby learn something of what is already known about it ; or he has found a rarity, a discovery not always distressing to the amateur.

To aid in these determinations, separate keys are appended for each of the three stages, caterpillar, chrysalis, and butterfly, by which any insect included in the work may be tracked.

There is another advantage in this restriction of the work to the commoner butterflies, for these are better known in the various stages of their lives, and interest in them is thereby greatly enhanced. I should be loath indeed to treat of butterflies as if they were so many mere postage-stamps to be classified and arranged in a cabinet ; and if, by adding to the mere descriptions of the different species in their various most obvious stages some of the curious facts concerning their periodicity, their habits of life, and their relations to the world around them, I may spread before the eyes of the young some of the attractions which lie at the open door of Nature and induce some to wander into the by-ways for more eager personal search, I shall have gained my end.

Those wishing still further accounts of the different species here described, and jmrticularly descriptions and figures of the egg and earlier stages of the caterpillar of

PREFACE.

any one of them, are referred to my " Butterflies of the Eastern United States and Canada/' and to Edwards's " Butterflies of North America/' in one or the other of which ample accounts will often be found.

Species which are found in the region embraced in this work, but not regarded as sufficiently common therein to merit a place in it, are mentioned by name in their appropriate places in smaller type; they number just about as many as those of which descriptions are given, and full accounts of most of them will also be found in the works above mentioned.

A short Introduction to the study of Butterflies in general, with special application to our own, is prefixed to the body of the work, and is followed by a brief section showing where the principal literature upon the subject is to be found. An explanation of some of the terms used is appended, and a figure added on p. 60 explanatory of the nomenclature of the wing.

Cambridge, April 13, 1893.

Contents

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Preface , iii

What are Butterflies? 1