M. Leanira is so distinct from all other Melitæae, that it is impossible to make any error in reference to its diagnosis. It is found in June and July in valleys of the Contra Costa hills, where I collected it myself. I received other specimens from Yosemite Valley. I have not succeeded in finding the caterpillar.
I have to add a few observations regarding the geographical distribution of the genus Melitæa in general and of its different types separately.
The genus Melitæa spreads from the Arctic zone to the tropic of Cancer and some mountain species even farther. Unlike the genus Argynnis in its geographical distribution Melitæa has no Antarctic species. It has its center of abundance in the temperate zone and decreases towards the tropics as well as the arctic zone. According to that peculiarity of the western slope of continents by which the temperate zone is more developed in extent and quality, than in the eastern slopes, the greatest number of species are found in Europe and on our coast. Eastern Asia has very few species, but the genus is better represented on the Atlantic side of this continent, where however, it appears in the aberrant forms of M. Tharos, M. Pyrrha, etc, whose real nature seems still doubtful and which are at least intermediate between Argynnis and Melitæa.
The genuine type is very uniform, and therefore the diagnosis of the Californian as well as the European species is enveloped in many difficulties, so that even in regard to many European species known and described for more than a century, the limits of the species are frequently more or less doubtful and nearly every Catalogue gives the series of closely allied species in a different form.
California possesses two types wanting to the European Fauna; Europe one type wanting to California. To us the type of M. Cinxia is wanting, to Europe that most characteristic form of M. Leanira, which is a very natural transition to the genus Synchloe. The other wanting to the old world is that of M. Pyrrha, an osculant form peculiar to the new world where it extends nearly as far as the equator.
As regards the development of the genus in size and brilliancy of color, the Californians have a decided advantage. The giants of the genus are all Californian and the coloration more bright and more distinct than the somber hues of their less-developed European allies.
Like the Argynnides the Melitæae are essentially local. There is no Amphigeic species, and even the Polar species (which in Argynnis are sometimes Amphigeic) are always different in this genus, never occurring both in Europe and America. In the same way the Atlantic and Pacific species seem always to differ.
These butterflies not having a very powerful flight are generally confined to circumscribed localities, in which they are generally plentiful and easily collected. Their caterpillars are frequently social like those of the Vanessæ, preferring the family of Scrophalarineous plants, (Scrophularia in California, Linaria and Veronica in Europe), but inclined more to polyphagy than the Argynnides, in their predilection for the Violarineae. Besides the Scrophalarineae the Melitæae live on Plantago, Lonicera, Scabiosa, and some even are found on shrubby trees of Salix, Populus, and Fagus.
Dr. Cooper presented a continuation of his descriptions of fishes: