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The Sleepy Yellow

Eurema nicippe (Eu-re'ma ni-cip'pe) PLATE XV, FIG. 3, 5 The wings above are bright orange, marked with blackish brown as follows: on the fore wings a narrow bar at the apex of the discal cell, the apical portion of the wings, and the outer margin; on the hind wings, the outer margin. In the female the outer marginal band is interrupted at the anal angle of each wing, and on the hind wings it may be reduced to an apical patch. The expanse of wings is from one and six-tenths inches to one and nine-tenths inches.

CATERPILLAR. One inch in length; body, slender and downy; color green, with a white stripe along the side marked with yellow and bordered below with blackish.

Food-plants. Cassia, clover, senna.

The black spots which decorate the middle of the front wings of the yellows are reduced in this species to narrow, transverse lines, which look like eyes almost closed; because of this feature our name for this butterfly has always been the sleepy yellow. The common popular name that has been applied to it, the "black-bordered yellow," is not very distinctive in a family which particularly affects black borders. The male is a bright orange, while his wife is of a paler hue.

The lower side of the front wings is a brilliant orange yellow at the base, fading near the edges and looking like the western sky after sunset.

The sleepy yellow loves society, and flocks over the clover fields and upon forest-bordered meadows; when gathered in numbers on the moist earth they look like a patch of brilliant sunlight. It is a southern species extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Sometimes it appears as far north as New York, Ontario, and Wisconsin.

The caterpillars eat the tips of the cassia leaves at first. There are three distinct broods and probably more, as Mr. Edwards found in September in West Virginia a branch of senna on which was every stage of this butterfly, from the egg to the newly emerged adult.

Thou spark of life, that wavest wings of gold !

Thou songless wanderer 'mid the songful birds, With nature's secrets in thy tints unrolled Through gorgeous cipher, past the reach of words, Yet dear to every child In glad pursuit beguiled, Living his unspoiled days 'mid flowers and flocks and herds.

HIGGINSON.