The specimen figured on the Plate is the type of the male contained in the collection of the late William H. Edwards. Although taken long ago, it retains all its original freshness and beauty.
There used to be near Cresson on the summit of the Allegheny Mountains a field surrounded by woodland in which violets grew. When the clover was in bloom myriads of Fritillaries, belonging to the species aphrodite, cybele, and atlantis, congregated there. What captures we made! Many a collection on both sides of the Atlantic contains specimens taken in that field, but no possessor of these specimens can have the happy memories of the days passed in that field by their captor.
PL. XV
(7) Argynnis callippe Boisduval. [Plate XV], ♀, under side (Callippe).
Wings on the upper side obscured with dark brown on which the pale buff spots, margined with black, stand out conspicuously. On the under side the wings are pale buff, with a greenish cast, the spots well silvered. Expanse 2.3 to 3 inches.
Abundant in southern California, according to W. G. Wright, preferring plains, and being confined mainly to the little hot valleys which traverse them. According to the same author the life of the insect as an imago is very brief, “the shortest of any Argynnid that I know of, being only a few days in length.”
PL. XVI
Many of the western species do not have the spots on the under side silvered, but are none the less beautiful for that. One of these species, without silvery spots, the spots being creamy white, without metallic lustre, is the beautiful insect figured on [Plate XVI], A. rhodope, the under side of the female type of which we show. There are nearly a dozen species of Argynnis belonging to the same group with A. rhodope, but the latter is the most beautiful of all of them.