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Psyche 9:195-196, 1900.

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PSYCHE.
A COURAGEOUS BUTTERFLY, OENEIS SEMIOKA.* BY SAMUEL H. SCL'nDFR, CUvIRRTDGF, MASS. High up on the wind-swept peaks of
the White Mountains of New Hampshire,
far above the upper limit of the trees,
with no other protection than the lee of the rocks, the crevices between the angu- lar blocks ot gray stone which conspic-
uously mark those barren altitudes, or
the clumps of sedge which cover their
more level reaches, lives a frail brown
butterfly, which is found in no other spot in the world save the very tops of the
still higher peaks of the Rocky MOUTI-
tains in- distant Colorado, twelve or fonr- teen thousand feet above the sea. It
has relatives, some so close as sometimes to be mistaken fur it, in the far northern latitudes of Labrador, where the condi-
tions of life are similar; but nowhere in New England or the surrounding country
can it or anything like it be found, save within two or three miles of Mt. Wash-
ington, at an elevation of from five to
six thousand feet above the sea.
Semidea, half a goddess, is the name
bestowed upon it by our pioneer natura-
list, Say, in token of its life among the clouds.
Half-way to the heavens is its
abode, ancl here, amid the winds and
storms which rage about the mountains,
the little colony flourishes as if it did not know that butterflies are preeminently
creatures of the sun and warmth, and
had never heard of the tropics which
seem so peculiarly their home.
Yet it is but a feeble creature, even
for a butterfly; for though its body and legs are covered with a furry clothing,
as if to protect it from the cold, its thin, gauze-like wings arc even more flimsy,
delicate ancl limp than usual among its
tribe, and seem ill-fitted indeed to with- stand the furious blasts and sudden
gusts that prevail on those breezy up-
lands.
And, truth to tell, it is but a feeble
flutterer; often when one has been
startled into flight by my near approach on a tempestuous day, I have seen the
wind catch it and sweep it nearly out of sight in a couple of seconds; and once I was able to follow one thus borne along
against a background of white cloud,
until it was swept far beyond the moun-
tain-side, whence probably it was unable to return, and perished far from home.




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196 PSYCHE. :M~T
Yet this very weakness is probably
one cause of the ability of this species to maintain its hold in its peculiar
dwelling-place; for the study of the
insects of wind-swept regions, like
oceanic islands and high mountain sum-
mits, shows us that to maintain their
life the inhabitants must be either spe- cially strong-winged to withstand the
gales, or very weak-winged, or, indeed,
often wingless, so as not to attempt to
contend against the wind, or even to be
quite unable to fly.
So our weak-winged Semidea rarely
takes flight at all in windy weather, or, if caught by a gust, makes no attempt
to cope with it, satisfied if it be allowed speedily to drop into some sheltered
spot where it may secure a foothold. It
then proceeds forthwith to creep into
some cranny; or, if still prevented by
the wind, falls over upon its side,
feet to the windward, but clinging
to the rock or soil, closes its wings,
and tucks them together so as to
offer the least surface to the dangerous breeze. Our illustration (plate I) repre- sents one thus clinging to a stone, a bit of lichen-covered rock brought for the
artist's use from Mt. Washington ; it
shows, also, as well as can be shown with- out color, how the exposed mottled por-
tions of the butterfly's wings harmonize with the freckled surface of the rock,-
a case of " protective resemblance."
So it maintains its hold. And cer-
tainly not with difficulty, for it is one of our commonest butterflies ; and though
hundreds, perhaps thousands, are an-
nually captured by enthusiastic cc
tors, mostly within an area of a si
square mile, it continues as abundat
ever, and seems better able than
wide-ranging bison to avoid extinc
During the entire month of July
butterflies swarm over the rocks
sedgy plateaus of the upper sumr
directly through which thousand:
travellers yearly make their pilgrin
by the cog-railway or the can
road.
During the latter part of this mi
hundreds of thousands, perhaps
lions, of eggs are laid by the butter1
from which, in about a fortnight, h
big-headed, striped mites of caterpill
these nibble at the sedges a short t
and then, their parents long dead
into winter quarters, hiding in the t
est crevices they can find.
Probably the whole of the next !
mer and part of still another is spel
this stage, in which the caterpillar f
both by night and by day upon
sedges, that so abound upon the in
tain-side as often to give the appear;
of a pasture ground.
Some, doubtless, mature sooner
others, 01- we should see the butt
only in alternate years, whereas i
equally common every year. Wher
feeding, the caterpillar is hiding bet\
the rocks in just such places a
chooses to pass the winter in, and w
also it changes to a chrysalis, I
flat upon its back without further pr~
tion than the rocks afford; unless
deed, it cuddles up against some n




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B ~ ~ Y , ion] PSYCHE. 197
and shapcs that side into the form and
or less of preparation, the butterfly is protection of a cell. once more upon the wing-a stranded The chrysalis state is assumed in relic of the great Ice Age, like the alpine June, and lasts two weeks or more, sandwort, Arenaria gruerzlaniiica, whose and then again, after two years more
honeyed sweets it now robs.
VARIATION IN TRIDACTYLUS.
UY A. P. MORSE, WELLESLKY, MASS.
7'å´}'id~rctyZ/~ is a genus of small, fosso- rial crickets, allied in structure and hab- its to GryZlotalpa, the mole-cricket, and differing most noticeably from that genus, among several things, in being smaller
in size and possessing remarkable salta- tory powers.
Representatives of the genus occur
over the greater part, at least, of the
United States, and range in size from
six to twelve millimeters in length when adult. They frequent the margins of
streams and ponds, burrowing in the
sandy loam of the banks and shores,
and may be secured, when a station is
discovered, by sweeping rapidly just
above the ground with a net of cheese-
cloth or other close-meshed material.
Owing to their alertness, activity, and
leaping mode of progression close obser- vations of their habits are exceedingly
difficult to make out-of-doors and but
little is known regarding them. Whether
confinement would secure satisfactory
results remains to be learned, but it is hoped that some one having an oppor-
tunity to do so will make the attempt
and if possible discover the special func- tion of the remarkably modified anterior tibiae of the male in certain species and the significance of the variation noted
below.
While collecting on Nantucket Island
late in the afternoon of July 12, 1900, I found a locality for Tridactylus on the
shore of a small pond and captured
several examples of both sexes. On the
following day additional specimens were
secured in the same place and about an
adjoining pond. On my return home,
examination after mounting disclosed an
interesling state of affairs.
The 52 specimens taken on the two
successive days in this one locality con- sist of one immature, 18 females, and
33 males. These exhibit no essential
difference in color, size or markings
leading one to infer the presence of two species, nor do the female examples dif- fer in structural details. A close cxam- ination of the males, however, reveals a singular variation in the structure of the anterior tibiae. In about one third of
the males the form is the same as that
of the female (Fig. I), - more or less
irregularly ovate in outline, terminating



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