(3) Lycæna melissa Edwards, [Plate XC], Fig. 4, ♀ (The Orange-margined Blue).
The male on the upper side is pale blue, with a narrow black marginal line and white fringes. The female is brown or lilac-gray with a series of orange-red crescents on the outer margin of both wings. The wings below are stone-gray with the usual spots, but on the hind wings the orange crescents are oblong tipped inwardly with black and outwardly with metallic green. Expanse 0.90-1.15 inch.
Ranges from Arizona to Montana.
PL. XCI
(4) Lycæna scudderi Edwards, [Plate XCI], Fig. 1, ♂ (Scudder’s Blue).
Our figure gives a good idea of the upper side of the male, which is hard to discriminate from the same sex of L. melissa. The female is darker, and has only a few orange crescents on the outer margin of the hind wing on the upper side. On the under side the wings are shining white, the spots much reduced in size, the large orange spots found in L. melissa being replaced by little ochreous spots very obscurely tipped externally by a few greenish scales.
The caterpillar feeds on lupine and allied plants. The insect is very common in the basin of the St. Lawrence River and the Great Lakes. It abounds in central New York.
PL. XCII