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The Painted Beauty (Vanessa huntera Va-nes'sa)

Vanessa huntera (Va-nes'sa hun'te-ra) PLATE XXVI, FIG. 3, 4 The wings above are very dark brownish black, with large irregular spots of golden orange. In the apical portion of the fore wings there are several white spots. The lower surface of the wings is represented on the Plate. A characteristic feature is the presence of two submarginal eyelike spots on the hind wing. Expanse of wings two inches to two and one-half inches.

CATERPILLAR. -Length one and one-fourth inches. The color of the body velvety black with narrow cross lines of yellow; and there is a silvery white spot on each side of each of the posterior segments, making a row of white spots on each side of the rear two-thirds of the caterpillar. The head has no spines, but the body has rows of bristly spines.

Food-plants. Everlasting (Graphalium), and allied plants. This butterfly may be seen along roadsides from May until November, from morning until nearly sunset, hanging in apparent bliss to the red purple blossoms of the thistle, fitfully lifting itself to thrust its tongue down in another place, opening wide its orange-yellow and black wings, then shutting them to show the delicate rose color of the under side of the front wings and the two eye-spots of the hind wings. In watching it on its favorite flower one wonders if that rose color on the under side of the front wings is not protective, it harmonizes so well with the pink of the blossom.

Much might be expected of a butterfly which receives its early nourishment from the immortelle. Most interesting is the habit of the caterpillar when just from the egg. Mr. Scudder tells us it constructs a mat of the silken hair of the leaf of the everlasting woven together with its silk, and beneath this it hides and feeds. Later it fastens two of the leaves together and feeds therein, and later in the season delights in eating the blossoms, which it encloses in a web. It hibernates as a chrysalis sometimes, but oftener as a butterfly, not leaving its winter quarters before the middle of May.

The species occurs in Ontario and nearly the whole of the United States.