In 1949 and 1951, when collecting Lycaeides in the Tetons, all over Jackson Hole, and in the Yellowstone, I had found that to the north and east L. argyrognomon (idas) longinus Nab, turns into /.. argyrognomon (idas) scudderi F.riw. but I had not solved the problem of the L. melissa strain so prominent in some colonies of L. argyrognomon longinus (i.e. Black Tail Butte near Jackson). I had conjectured that hybridization occurs or had occurred with wandering low elevation L. melissa (the rather richly marked «Artemisian» L. melissa — probably in need of some name) that follows alfalfa along roads as Plebeius saepiolus does clover. In result of my 1952 quest the situation appears as follows. The most northern point where typical L. longinus occurs is the vicinity of Moran, seldom below 7,000 ft. alt. and up to 11,000 at least. It spreads south at those altitudes for more than a thousand miles to the southern tip of Bridger National Forest but not much further (I have not found it, for instance, around Kemmerer). I have managed to find one L. melissa, a fresh 6, in August, 1952, in a dry field near Afton, less than a mile from the canyon into which both sexes of L. longinus descended from the woods above. At eastern points of the Bridger and Shoshone Forests, L. longinus stops definitely at The Rim, west of Bondurant, and at Brooks Lake (about 7,500 ft. alt.) some twenty miles west of Dubois. Very small colonies (seldom more than half-a-dozen specimens were taken in any one place) of L. melissa were found around Dubois at 6,500 ft. alt. or so (agricultural areas and the hot dry hills). A colony of typical (alpine) L. melissa melissa as described by Edwards, was found just above timberline in the Sierra Madre. The search for L. melissa in various windy and barren localities in the sagebrush zone in midJuly led to the finding of a rather unexpected Blue. This was Plebeius (Icaricia) shasta Edw., common in the parched plain at less than 7,000 ft. alt, between Saratoga and Encampment flying on sandy ground with Phyciodes mylitta barnesi Skinner, Satyrium fuliginosa Edw., and Neominois ridingsi Edw. It was also abundant all over the hot hills at 6,500 ft. alt. around Dubois where nothing much else occurred. I have not yet been able to compare my specimens with certain series in the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard, but I suggest that this lowaltitude P. shasta is the true P. minnehaha Scudder while the alpine torm which 1 tound in enormous numbers above timberline in Estes Park (especially, on Twin Sisters) and which collectors, following Holland's mislead, eaH «minnehaha» is really an described race.
As to migratory species observed in Wyoming, 1952, I distinguish two groups: (1) latitudinal migrants — moving within their zones of habitat mainly in a westeast (North America) or eastwest (Europe) direction and capable of surviving a Canadian Zone winter in this or that stage. Mobile, individually wandering species of Plebeius and dolias belong to this group as well as our four erratically swarming Nymphalis species which hibernate in the imaginal stage. In early August the trails in Bridger National Forest were covered at every damp spot with millions of N. californica Boisd. in tippling groups of four hundred and more, and countless individuals were drifting in a steady
stream along every canyon. It was interesting to find a few specimens of the beautiful dark western form of N. jalbum Boisd. & Lee. among the N. californica near Afton. (2) longitudinal migrants — moving early in the season from subtropical homes to summer breeding places in the Nearctic region but not hibernating there in any stage. Vanessa cardui L. is a typical example. Its movements in the New World are considerably less known than in the Old World (in eastern Europe, for instance, according to my own observations, migratory flights from beyond the Black Sea hit the south of the Crimea in April, and females, bleached and tattered, reach the Leningrad region early in June). In the first week of July, 1952, this species (offspring mainly) was observed in colossal numbers above timberline in the Snowy Range over which the first spring Hock had passed on May 28, according to an intelligent ranger. A few specimens of Euptoieta claudia Cramer were in clover fields around Afton, western Wyoming, in August. Of Leptotes marina Reakirt, one 6 was observed near Afton in August, with Apodemia mormo Kelder and «Hemiargus» (Echinargus) isola Reakirt. Both A. mormo and E. isola plant very isolated small summer colonies on hot hillsides. The H. isola specimens, which I took also in Medicine Bow National Forest, are all tiny ones, an obvious result of seasonal environment, not subspeciation. H. isola (incidentally, this is not a Latin adjective, but a fancy name — an Italian noun originally — and cannot be turned into «iso/tts» to comply with the gender of the generic name, as done by some writers) belongs to a neotropical group (my Echinargus) with two other species: E. martha Dognin, from the Andes, and a new species, described by me but not named, from Trinidad and Venezuela (see Psyche, 52: 34). Other representatives of neotropical groups (Graphium marcellus Cramer, «Strymon» meltnus Hiibner, Pyrgus communts Grote, Epargyreus clarus Cramer — to name the most obvious ones) have established themselves in the Nearctic more securely than
H. isola. Among the migratory Pierids, the following were observed: single specimens of Natbalis iole Boisd. all over Wyoming; one worn 6 of Pboebis eubule L. in the Sierra Madre (Battle Lake), July 9; one worn 6 of Eurema mexicana Boisd., between Cheyenne and Laramie (and a worn 9 near Ogallala, Neb.), first week of July.
The Lepidopterists' News, Vol. 7, July 26, 1953, pp. 4952.
AUDUBON'S BUTTERFLIES. MOTHS
AND OTHER STUDIES Compiled and edited by Alice Ford
Anyone knowing as little about butterflies as I do about birds may find Audubon's lepidoptera as attractive as his bright, active, theatrical birds are to me. Whatever those birds do, I am with them, heartily sharing, for instance, the openbilled wonder of «Green Heron» at the fantastic situation and much too bright colors of «Luna Moth» in a famous picture of the «Birds» folio. At present, however, I am concerned only with Audubon's sketchbook («a fifteenpage pioneer art rarity» belonging to Mrs. Kirby Chambers of New Castle, Kentucky) from which Miss Ford has published drawings of butterflies and other insects in a handsome volume padded with additional pictorial odds and ends and an account of Audubon's life. The sketches were made in the 1820s. Most of the lepidoptera which they burlesque came from Europe (Southern France, I suggest). Their scientific names, supplied by Mr. Austin H. Clark, are meticulously correct — except in the case of one butterfly, p. 20, top, which is not a Hamaerts but a distorted Zerynthia. Their English equivalents, however, reveal some sad editorial blundering: «Cabbage», p. 23, and «Miller», p. 91, should be «Bath White» and «Witch», respectively; and the two moths on p. 64 are emphatically not «Flesh Flies». In an utterly helpless account of the history of entomological illustration, Miss Ford calls Audubon's era «scientifically unsophisticated». The unsophistication is all her own. She might have looked up John Abbot's prodigious representations of North American lepidoptera, 1797, or the splendid plates of eighteenth and earlynineteenthcentury German lepidopterists, or the rich butterflies that enliven the flowers and fruit of the old Dutch Masters. She might have traveled back some thirtythree centuries to the times of Tuthmosis IV or Amenophis III and» instead of the obvious scarab, found there frescoes with a marvelous Egyptian butterfly (subtly combining the pattern of our Painted Lady and the body ot an African ally ot the Monarch). I cannot speak with any authority about the beetles and grasshoppers in the Sketchbook, but the butterflies are certainly inept. The exaggerated crenulation of hindwing edges, due to a naive artist's doing his best to render the dry, rumpled margins of carelessly spread specimens, is typical of the poorest entomological figures of earlier centuries and to these figures Audubon's sketches are curiously close. Query: Can anyone draw something he knows nothing about? Does there not exist a high ridge where the mountainside of «scientific» knowledge joins the opposite slope of «artistic» imagination? If so, Audubon, the butterfly artist, is at sea level on one side and climbing the wrong foothill on the other.