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The Acadian Hair-Streak (Thecla acadica Thec'la)

Thecla acadica (Thec'la a-cad'i-ca) PLATE XXXIII, FIG. 10, II The upper surface of the wings is of a uniform blackish slate brown; costal edge of fore wings, especially near the base, tawny. In cell Cu, of the hind wings, a submarginal, orange, lunate spot, which is indistinctly continued to the inner border of the wing. The under surface is pearl gray; on each wing there is a dark bar edged with white at the end of cell R+M; beyond this a bent row of roundish black spots encircled with white; and beyond this a submarginal row of black lunules edged within with white, and followed without by orange spots. The orange spots of the front wings are inconspicuous; but on the hind wings they increase in size toward the anal angle, except that the one in cell Cu is largely covered by a blue patch. The most available characters for distinguishing this species are the pale pearl-gray color of the lower side, and the small size of the spots of the extra mesial row; these of both pairs of wings are round, very black, and completely encircled with white; usually each spot occupies but little more than half the width of a cell. Expanse of wings one and one-fifth inches.

CATERPILLAR.-Length about one-half inch; slug-shaped; the brown head is very small; the body is almost oval in outline and grass green in color. Two yellowish stripes along the side include a row of oblique short stripes of the same color. Food-plant. Willow.

This bronze-brown midget loves to flit about willow-fringed streams. Though it is dull-colored at first glance, a second look at the lower surface of the wings reveals to us a shining, bronze gray specked with black and with a patch of heavenly blue set in the row of orange spots that decorate the hind border of the hind wing, making a most harmonious color scheme. This butterfly must have been expelled from Acadia with Evangeline, as there is no record of its having been found as far north as Acadia since it was discovered and named. It is quite peculiar in its distribution, inhabiting a narrow belt that extends from New England west to Montana. On the Pacific coast it is found from Los Angeles to Vancouver. Its little, soft, supple caterpillar 1 lives upon several species of willow; it trims down the leaf, methodically beginning at the outer edge and eating toward the center. The winter is passed in the egg state.

But she God love her! -feared to brush The dust from off its wings.

WORDSWORTH.