Cambridge Entomological Club, 1874
PSYCHE

A Journal of Entomology

founded in 1874 by the Cambridge Entomological Club
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Article beginning on page 177.
Psyche 8:177-178, 1897.

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February 1898.1 PSY CHE. 177
lis (on R. R. from Albany to coast) is
good. Mary's Peak (4000 to 5000 ft.)
in Coast Range, will repay a visit ; take R, R, from Albany to Philomath, road
3 miles, trail miles. Trail runs up
through untouched forest ; on summit
is a large grassy pasture and a fine view of the Cascade Mts., including nine
snowclad peaks.
Portland.
Go up on the Heights
and reconnoitre. Take trolley-car to
Columbia slough for flower-loving
insects. Do not miss trip by steamer
up Columbia River to Hood River or
Dalles east of Cascades, - an all-day
ride. From Hood River one may go
by stage to Cloud Cap Inn at timber-
line on Mt. Hood.
Western Washington is much like the
Willamette Valley, but more thickly
wooded. For forests try Ainslie or
Napavine; for open mixed country
Chehalis or antralia. Tenino is very
good, - stream, forest, clearings, prai- rie pastures, etc. Treeless gravel plains at Yelrn Prairie. Fine old forests in
vicinity of Wilkeson and Carbonado,
-by R. R. from Tacoma. Tacoma
presents a good variety on the outskirts of the city,-salt-marshes, fields, forests, lakes and gravel plains 6 to 10 miles
southwest.
These are a few of the more desirable
localities and chiefly those with which
I became personally acquainted. There
are, of course, many intermediate
points that will repay examination if a
relatively small area is covered or a
particular section is to be investigated. The coastwise country may be reached
by steamers from San Francisco or
Portland and thence from port to port
as opportunity offers, or in some cases by railroad or stage. If preferred, one
may, at a slight increase of expense,
secure a ticket over the Coast division
of the So. Pacific R. R. between Los
Angeles and San Francisco, thus reach-
ing Santa Barbara, the Salinas Valley,
and other portions of this region. A
trip to the Yosemite Valley may be
made from San Francisco (by steamer
to Stockton, etc.) for less than from
Berenda, the usual approach.
BUTTERFLY LIFE IN THE TROPICS OF INDIA.
[In a recent paper by Messrs. David-
son, Bell and Aitken on the butterflies
of the North Canara district of the Bom- bayPresidency,inwhich particular attcn-
tion is paid to the early stages, we find the following passage, which presents
in a few words a striking contrast to
what is found in temperate regions and
which may therefore interest our
readers.]
Collectors in other parts of India often write of the number of broods in the
year in terms which imply more reg-
ularity than we have observed in this
moist and equable climate. We are
not inclined to think that the majority
of species here have any fixed number
of broods in the year. One generation
succeeds another as fast as conditions
permit. It would be difficult to name




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178 PSYCHE. [February ~898.
any month in the year when many
common species, such as E+loea core,
may not be seen laying their eggs.
They are undoubtedly much more
plentiful in some months than others,
but this is because the largest number
of larvae come to maturity at those
times when succulent young leaves are
most plentiful and enemies least active. Many species, however, pass through a
certain portion of the year, which is
unfavorable to them, in a state analo-
gous to hibernation. For example the
smaller Lycaenidae, such as Zizera,
are not to be seen from June to August,
when the heavy rain would beat down
such feeble butterflies and drown their
larvae. They appear in September
and swarm for some months after.
The same is true of Hypolimnas %is-
ifpus, perhaps because it feeds on
ground weeds, and the larva is liable to be drowned by heavy rain. On the
other hand, U. bold and the majority
of the Nymphalinae and also the Papil-
ioninae are much more abundant dur-
ing the monsoon than at any other sea-
son. By the end of the year some of
them have become very scarce, if
they have not disappeared altogether,
and it is evident that those which feed
on deciduous plants cannot be in the
larva state from December to March
and later. The Pierinae, excepting
Nepheronia, are less abundant during
the rains than in the cold season, and
Atella' phalantha may be called a dry-
season butterfly ; its period of inactivity is the monsoon.
How each species tides over the par-
ticular time which is unfavorable to it
is an interesting question on which our
knowledge is very limited. We have
proved that Pafilio nomins regularly
remains in the pupa state from August
till the following March or May ; but
this is a peculiar case. In P. clytia
the pupa state is often prolonged for
weeks or months without regard to
season. But in the vast majority of
species the pupae in our cages hatch on
the due date as regularly as hen's eggs. Yet there are good reasons for thinking- that it is in the pupa state that most
butterflies pass through the time when
nature is against them.
It is also not
improbable that eggs laid at an unfavor- able time remain unhatched till next
season. Lastly, some Hesperiidae hi-
bernate in the larva state. The larva
when full grown stops eating and shuts
itself up in a cell as if it were about to become a pupa, but it does not actually
undergo that change for some weeks or
even months.
We are not disposed to
believe that in this climate the imago
hibernates as it commonly does in Eu-
rope.
Apart from hibernation, the length of
a larva's life varies a good deal accord- ing to the supply of food. When ten-
der leaves are plentiful they grow fast. Butterflies of strong build and powerful flight, such as the Charaxes and the
larger Hesperiidae, live much longer in
the larva state than others. The dura-
tion of the pupa state, on the other
hand, seems to depend on little else
than size. Small Lycaenidae emerge in
a week, the majority of medium-sized




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February 18~8.1
PSYCHE.
butterflies in ten days, and the Papilios takes three weeks. (Journ. Bomb. in a fortnight. Troides (Ornithoptera) nat. hist. soc., X, 1-3). THE ACRIDIAN SUBFAMILY MASTA-
CINAE IN THE UNITED STATES.
THE American Mastacinae hitherto known
are the genera Mastax and Masyntes, which have been reported only from South America and the West Indies.
In his collections on the Pacific coast last summer Mr. A. P. Morse obtained two speci- mens of an apterous and possibly immature Mastacid, one at Cahon Pass in southern
California on July 19, the other on Mt. Wil- son, Altadena, near Los Angeles, on July 27. They belong to a new generic type, most
nearly allied to Masyntes Karsch but dift'er- ing from it by having a more appressed head with less convex vertex, the fastiginm prom- inent as in Masyntes but broadly convex
instead of silicate or latei'dly marginate, apically broadly rounded and not cmarginate, the lateral carinae of the metazona much less pronounced, the posterior angle of the lateral lobes rectangulate and the spines of the hind tibiae of uniform length. The body is cin- ereons with a broad black median stripe on the vertex, and on the upper half of the lateral lobes of the pronoturn, continued on the abdomen; the fore and middle legs are ruddy. The length of the body and of the hind femora is only y mm. The genus may
be called Morsea and the species califoruica. Samuel II. Scudder.
EARLY STAGES OF TROPICAL
BUTTERFLIES. ,
IN another place in this number we have
printed an extract from a paper by Messrs. Davidson, Bell and Aitken, on Bombay but- terflies. This paper which appears in vol- umes x and xi of the Bombay journal is one of the most important contribi~ions to our knowledge of the early stages of tropical butterflies that have appeared in recenli years. It is accompanied by eight colored plates of caterpillars and chrysalids and is in continuation of a paper by two of the number in the same journal eight years ago, where six similar colored plates are given and notes of no less than 94 species which they had themselves reared. The present
paper includes a list of the butterflies of the district, which they enumerate EIS 233 species and of these notes are given or referred to of the earlier stages of all but 36. This is a remarkable showing.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLUB.
14 January, 1898.
The 198th regular and
~1st annual meeting of the Club was held at 156 Brattle St., Mr. A. P. Morse in the chair. Reports from the several officers were re- ceived and the following persons elected for the ensuing year:-President, T. E.
Bean ; secretary, Roland I-Iayviird ; treasurer,. Samuel Henshaw; librarian, Samuel Hi
Shudder; members at large of the executive- committee, J. W. Folsom and S. H.-Scndder. The address of the retiring president, Dr.. H. G. Dyar, on the larvae of the Australian Eucleidae, was read by proxy. It is given elsewhere in this number.
Mr. R. Hayward showed a female speci-
men of Zarhi-ftis infeg-ri-fsennis sent him re- cently by Mr. L. E. Ricksecker of Santa
Rosa, Ca1. Mr. Rkksecker stated in a letter that he had obtained three females, from which he procured eggs. A few larvae were obtained, but they died soon after hatching.



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