(2) Colænis delila, Fabricius, Plate VIII, Fig. 4, ♂ (Delila).
The Delila Butterfly very closely resembles Julia, and principally differs in being paler in color and without the black band extending from the costa to the outer margin of the primaries. This species has nearly the same form and the same size as the preceding, and, like it, is occasionally found in southern Texas. It is very common in Central America and the West Indies. One of the earliest memories of my childhood relates to a collection of Jamaican butterflies in which were a number of specimens of this butterfly, which I have always much admired.
Genus DIONE, Hübner (Agraulis, Boisd.-Lec.)
Butterfly.—Head large, the antennæ moderately long, with the club flattened; the tip of the abdomen does not extend beyond the inner margin of the hind wings; the cell of the hind wings is open; the primaries are elongated, nearly twice as long as broad, with the exterior margin excavated; the secondaries at the outer margin denticulate. The prevalent color of the upper side of the wings is fulvous, adorned with black spots and lines, the under side of the wings paler brown, in some of the species laved with pink and brilliantly adorned with large silvery spots, as in the genus Argynnis.
Egg.—Conoidal, truncated on top, with fourteen ribs running from the apex to the base, between which are rows of elevated striæ, causing the surface to appear to be covered with quadrangular pits.
Larva.—The caterpillar is cylindrical in its mature stage, tapering a little from the middle toward the head, which is somewhat smaller than the body. The head and each segment of the body are adorned with branching spines.
[a]Fig. 87.]—Neuration of the genus Dione.
Chrysalis.—The chrysalis is suspended, and has on the dorsal surface of the abdomen a number of small projections. At the point where the abdominal and thoracic segments unite on the dorsal side there is a deep depression, succeeded on the middle of the thorax by a rounded elevation composed of the wing-cases. At the vertex of the chrysalis there is a conical projection; on the ventral side the chrysalis is bowed outwardly.