The Pearly Eye
Enodia portlandia
Most butterflies are creatures of open country, basking freely in the sunshine and visiting flowers of many sorts for their nectar food. Some of them are found at times along the borders of woods and others seek the woods especially in autumn for the purpose of hibernation. This exquisite Pearly Eye, however, is distinctly a woodland species, being found only in little glades in the midst of woods and apparently seldom even seeking flowers for their nectar. It is commonly considered one of the rarest of American butterflies, but many collectors who have searched their regions carefully have been able to find small areas in which the butterfly is quite abundant. In such situations it may be looked for in all parts of the United States east of the western limits of the Mississippi Valley and south of Canada, except perhaps the lower part of Florida.
In northern regions this butterfly is single-brooded: the adults appear shortly before midsummer and continue on the wing through July and at least part of August. The eggs are laid some weeks after the butterflies emerge. The caterpillars feed upon grasses and apparently hibernate after they become well grown, changing to chrysalids the following spring in time to emerge as butterflies in early summer.
These Pearly Eyes have certain characteristics which are of especial interest. No other species presents such exquisite modulation of brown coloring arranged in beautiful circles upon both surfaces of the wings. The males possess, perhaps to a greater degree than any other of our native butterflies, the ability to give off a peculiar, pleasant aroma which is noticeable whenever the insects are collected and which at least one careful observer has been able to detect in the open air as the butterfly flew near.
For many years Mr. W. F. Fiske made a special study of the butterflies prevailing in the region of Webster, New Hampshire. His word picture of the haunts of the Pearly Eye is more adequate than any other which has been published and seems well worth quoting in this connection:
"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.