Vladimir Nabokov. Articles about butterflies
THE FEMALE OF LYCAEIDES SUBLIVENS NAB
Last summer (1951) I decided to visit Telluride, San
Miguel County, Colorado, in order to search for the unknown
female of what I had described as Lycaeides argyrognomon
sublivens in 1949 (Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., vol. 101:
p. 513) on the strength of nine males in the Museum of
Comparative Zoology, Harvard, which had been taken in the
vicinity of Telluride half a century ago. L. sublivens
is an isolated southern representative (the only known one
south of northwestern Wyoming, southeast of Idaho, and east of
California) of the species (the holarctic argyrognomon
Bergstr.=idas auct.) to which anna Edw.,
scudderi Edw., aster Edw., and six other nearctic
subspecies belong. I bungled my family''s vacation but got what
I wanted.
Owing to rains and floods, especially noticeable in
Kansas, most of the drive from New York State to Colorado was
entomologically uneventful. When reached at last, Telluride
turned out to be a damp, unfrequented, but very spectacular
cul-de-sac (which a prodigious rainbow straddied every evening)
at the end of two converging roads, one from Placerville, the
other from Dolores, both atrocious. There is one motel, the
optimistic and excellent Valley View Court where my wife and I
stayed, at 9,000 feet altitude, from the 3rd to the 29th of
July, walking up daily to at least 12,000 feet along various
more or less steep trails in search of sublivens. Once
or twice Mr. Homer Reid of Telluride took us up in his jeep.
Every morning the sky would be of an impeccable blue at 6 a.m.
when I set out. The first innocent cloudlet would scud across
at 7:30 a.m. Bigger fellows with darker bellies would start
tampering with the sun around 9 a.m., just as we emerged from
the shadow of the cliffs and trees onto good hunting grounds.
Everything would be cold and gloomy half an hour later. At
around 10 a.m. there would come the daily electric storm, in
several installments, accompanied by the most irritatingly
close lightning I have ever encountered anywhere in the
Rockies, not excepting Longs Peak, which is saying a good deal,
and followed by cloudy and rainy weather through the rest of
the day.
After 10 days of this, and despite diligent subsequent
exploration, only one sparse colony of sublivens was
found. On that one spot my wife found a freshly emerged male on
the 15th. Three days later I had the pleasure of discovering
the unusual-looking female. Between the 15th and the 28th, a
dozen hours of windy but passable collecting weather in all
(not counting the hours and hours uselessly spent in mist and
rain) yielded only 54 specimens, of which 16 were females. Had
I been younger and weighed less, I might have perhaps got
another 50, but hardly much more than that, and, possibly, the
higher ridges I vainly investigated between 12,000 and 14,000
feet at the end of July, in the
magdalena-snowi-centaureae zone, might have produced
sublivens later in the season.
The colony I found was restricted to one very steep slope
reaching from about 10,500 to a ridge at 11,000 feet and
towering over Tomboy Road between "Social Tunnel" and "Bullion
Mine." The slope was densely covered with a fine growth of
lupines in flower (Lupinus parviflorus Nuttall, which
did not occur elsewhere along the trail) and green gentians
(the tall turrets of which were assiduously patronized by the
Broad-Tailed Hummingbird and the White-Striped Hawkmoth). This
lupine, which in the mountains of Utah is the food-plant of an
alpine race of L. melissa (annetta Edw.), proved to be
also the host of L. sublivens. The larva pupates at its
base, and in dull weather a few specimens of both sexes of the
imago could be found settled on the lower leaves and stems, the
livid tone of the butterflies'' undersides nicely matching the
tint of the plant.
The female of sublivens is of a curiously arctic
appearance, completely different from the richly pigmented,
regionally sympatric, locoweed- and alfalfa-feeding L.
melissa or from the melissa-Vike females of Wyoming
and Idaho argyrognomon (idas) races, and somewhat
resembling argyrognomon (idas) forms from northwestern
Canada and Alaska (see for instance in the above-mentioned
work, p. 501 and plate 8, fig. 112). It also recalls a certain
combination of characters that crops up in L. melissa
annetta.
Here is a brief description of L. sublivens female:
Upper-side of a rather peculiar, smooth, weak brown, with an
olivaceous cast in the living insect; more or less extensively
dusted with cinder-blue scales; triangulate greyish blue inner
cretules generally present in the hindwing and often
accompanied by some bluish or greyish bleaching in the radial
cells of the forewing; aurorae reduced: short and dullish in
the hindwing, blurred or absent in the forewing, tending to
disappear in both wings and almost completely absent in 3
specimens; lunulate pale greyish blue outer cretules very
distinct in both wings; underside similar to that of the male.
Deposited: 20 males and 10 females in the Cornell
University collection, and 18 males and 6 females in the Museum
of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University.
Published in The Lepidopterists'' News,
New Haven, Conn., Vol. 6, August 8, 1952, pp. 35-36.
ON SOME INACCURACIES IN KLOTS'' FIELD GUIDE
In connection with "Blues," I wish to correct two or three
slips in Professor Alexander B. Klots'' important and delightful
hook (A Field Guide to the Butterflies of North America,
East of the Great Plains, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1951).
On p. 166 there is a misprint: "Center (formerly Karner)"
should be, of course, "Karner (formerly Center)." Incidentally
I visit the place every time I happen to drive (as I do yearly
in early June) from lthaca to Boston and can report that,
despite local picnickers and the hideous garbage they leave,
the lupines and Lycaeides samuelis Nab. are still doing
as fine under those old gnarled pines along the railroad as
they did ninety years ago.
On p. 165, another, more unfortunate transposition occurs:
"When fawn colored, more vivid in tone" should refer not to
Lycaeides argyrognomon {idas but to L. melissa,
while "wings beneath, when fawn colored, duller in tone" should
refer not to L. melissa but to L. argyrognomon
{Idas] (see my "Nearctic Lycaeides," Bull. Mus. Comp.
Zool., vol. 101: p. 541:1949).
On pp. 162-164, the genus Brephidium (in company
with two others) is incorrectly placed between Hemiargus
and Lycaeides. I have shown in my paper on Neotropical
Plebejinae (Psyche, vol. 52: pp. 1-61; 1945) that
Hemiargus {sensu lato) and Lycaeides belong to
the same group (subfamily Plebejinae-- or supergenus
Plebejus; the rank does not matter but the relationship
does). Brepbidium, of course, stands on the very
outskirts of the family, in a highly specialized group,
immeasurably further removed from Hemiargus or
Lycaeides than, say, Lycaena. This is where my
subfamilies come in handy since at least they keep related
things in one bunch and eject intruders. Views may differ in
regard to the hierarchic element in the classification I adopt,
but no one has questioned so far the fact of the structural
relationship and phylogenetic circumstances I mean it to
reflect. The whole interest of Hemiargus is that it is
allied to Lycaeides etc., while bearing a striking
superficial resemblance to an African group with which it does
not have the slightest structural affinity. Systematics, I
think, should bring out such points and not keep them blurred
in the haze of tradition. I am perfectly willing to demote the
whole of my "subfamily" Plebejinae to a supergenus or genus
Plebejus (Plebejus ceraunus, isola, thomasi, idas, melissa,
aquilo, saepiolus, etc.) but only under the condition that
it include exactly the same species, in the same groupings
("subgenera" or numbered sections, as you will) and in the same
sequence of groups, without intrusions from groups assigned
structurally to other "subfamilies" (and then, of course,
lygda-mus, battoides, and piasus should be all in
Scolitantides or its equivalent). However, I still think
that the formality of generic nances for the groupings is a
better method than going by numbers, etc. Names are also easier
to handle in works on zoological distribution when it is
important to bring out the way a group is represented in
different regions of the world. Generally speaking, systematics
is not directly concerned with the convenience of collectors in
their dealings with small local faunas. It should attempt to
express structural affinities and divergences, suggest certain
phylogenetic lines, relate local developments to global ones-and help lumpers to sort out properly the ingredients of their
lumps.
The Lepidopterists'' News, Vol. 6, August 8, 1952,
p. 41
BUTTERFLY COLLECTING IN WYOMING, 1952
A visit to Wyoming by car in July-- August 1952 was
devoted to collecting in the following places:
Southeastern Wyoming: eastern Medicine Bow National
Forest, in the Snowy Range, ...
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