Egg.—The eggs, which are deposited in clusters, are nearly globular, the summit broad and convex. The egg is ornamented by from eighteen to twenty rather broad vertical ribs, having no great elevation, between which are numerous faint and delicate cross-lines.
[a]Fig. 110.]—Neuration of the genus Clorippe, ♂.
Caterpillar.—The head is subquadrate, with the summit crowned by a pair of diverging stout coronal spines which have upon them a number of radiating spinules. Back of the head, on the sides, is a frill of curved spines. The body is cylindrical, thickest at the middle, tapering forward and backward from this point. The anal prolegs are widely divergent and elongated, as in many genera of the Satyrinœ.
Chrysalis.—The chrysalis is compressed laterally and keeled on the dorsal side, concave on the ventral side, the head distinctly bifid. The cremaster is very remarkable, presenting the appearance of a flattened disk, the sides studded with hooks, by means of which the chrysalis is attached to the surface, from which it depends in such a manner that the ventral surface is parallel to the plane of support.
The caterpillars feed upon the Celtis, or hackberry.
There are a number of species, mainly confined to the southwestern portion of the United States, though some of them range southward into Mexico. Two only are known in the Middle States. The species are double-brooded in the more northern parts of the country, and the caterpillars produced from eggs laid by the second brood hibernate.
(1) Chlorippe celtis, Boisduval and Leconte, Plate XXIII, Fig. 3, ♂; Fig. 4, ♁; Fig. 11, ♂, under side (The Hackberry Butterfly).
Butterfly, ♂.—The primaries at the base and the secondaries except at the outer angle pale olive-brown, the rest of the wings black. The dark apical tract of the primaries is marked by two irregular, somewhat broken bands of white spots. There is a red-ringed eye-spot between the first and second median nervules, near the margin of the fore wing, and there are six such spots on each hind wing. On the under side the ground-color is grayish-purple; the spots and markings of the upper side reappear on this side.
♁.—The female has the wings, as is always the case in this genus, much broader and not so pointed at the apex of the primaries as in the male sex, and the color is much paler. Expanse, ♂, 1.80 inch; ♁, 2.10 inches.