One of the smallest species of the genus, mouse-gray, spotted with white above; on the under side whitish gray, laved with pale red at the base of the fore wings, the spots of the upper side reappearing on this side. Expanse 0.75-0.95 inch.
Ranges from Utah to Mexico.
Genus POLYSTIGMA Salvin & Godman
There is thus far but one species known to belong to this genus, which is marked off from all others by the fact that the males have normally developed fore legs as well as the females, and thus are the “exception” in the family, “which proves the rule.”
(1) Polystigma nais (Edwards), [Plate LXXVIII], Fig. 1, ♂, Type (The Many-spot).
The lower side of the wings is pale red mottled with buff on the hind wings; the marks of the upper side reappear below and stand out boldly upon the paler ground. Expanse 1.00-1.25 inch.
P. nais occurs from Colorado to Mexico, east of the Rocky Mountains.
Family LYCÆNIDÆ
(The Hair-streaks, Coppers, and Blues).
Small butterflies. The males have the first pair of legs more or less aborted, and not adapted to walking. Many of the genera are brilliantly blue on the upper side of the wings, others are coppery red. In Africa there are numerous genera which mimic other butterflies in the form and color of their wings. The eggs are turban-shaped adorned with ridges, minute eminences, and networks of raised lines. Under the microscope some of them look like sea-urchins after the spines have fallen off. The caterpillars are slug-shaped, flat; and while most of them feed on vegetable matter a few feed on scale-insects and aphids, and some on the larvæ of ants. The latter are African and Oriental forms. The chrysalids are attached to the place where the caterpillar has pupated by a cincture or girdle.
The family is very large and is represented in all parts of the world, but there are probably more species in the American tropics than in any other quarter of the globe, unless it be in the Malaysian Archipelago and New Guinea, from which a host of species have been described in recent years.