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ON THE GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF NORTH AMERICAN LEPIDOPTERA

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 May 2012

Extract

In the preparation of the present paper I have used articles by myself which have appeared in the “Popular Science Monthly,” in the pages of “Silliman's Journal,” and elsewhere. I have also noticed what has been printed bearing on the subject by other writers. I have tried to present the whole subject as it now appears to me, at the risk of repeating myself in part. Ihis seemed at times excusable if not unavoidable, but as it is my own writings that I have chiefly borrowed from, the use of quotation marks is unnecessary, the more so as I have here gone freshly over the subject, digesting my previous observations and adding new ones before preparing the present chapter in a history of our North American Lepidoptera. Some of my views, as here stated, were put forth in a lecture I held in 1885, before the Bremen “Naturwissenschaftlichen Verein.” I shall be glad if this paper adds to the interest naturally evoked by this field of study in Natural History.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Entomological Society of Canada 1886

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References

page 163 note * I chose this species not only on account of the fact that I believe it to be a very ancient form of butterfly, but because I found it very plentiful in Alabama about swampy places on the roadside, from whence the species flew up in numbers to play in the arr, some settling on my hotse in a particularly fearless manner, allowing me to catch one on the very reins I held in my hand. This species is rare and solitary in New York, and illustrates what I have to say here about the increase in numbers of certain species as we go southward.

page 170 note * I print here the following note received from the lamented Naturalist, R. von Willemoes-Suhm, after whom I named the now well known genus of eyeless Crustacea (found in the Atlantic at great depths by the Expedition):—

“Challenger, Yeddo, May 7th, 1875.

“My Dear Prof. Grote,—

“There can be no doubt, I think, that Prof. Thompson will allow me to put aside specimens of Willemoesia when we come back to Europe. Just now they are all packed away and sent home, where the bottles remain unopened until we come back, which will be in about a year's time, and I shall then be very happy in sending you the desired Crustaceans.

I am, with great respect, your obed'st serv't, “(Signed) R, Von Willenmoes-Suhm.

“To Prof. Aug. Radcliffe Grote, Buffalo, N. Y.”

This was the second and last note that I received from this enterprising Naturalist, who died on board the Challenger shortly after, and before the ship left the Japanese waters. So we may hope to get safely back home from our journeys and never see it again!

page 171 note * See a number of papers on this subject, in particular my original communication read before the American Association for the Advancement of Science, August, 1875, and an article entitled “A Colony of Butterflies,” originally printed in the American Naturalist.

page 174 note * In the Canadian Entomologist, vol. vii., p. 186; also Ann. Lyc. Nat. Hist. N. Y., xi., p. 301, 1876, where I show that certain writers are at fault in considering the variation in the color of primaries in this prominent species as sexual, the whitest examples being given as the males; consult also an articte in the Canadian Entomologist entitled: “On Species of Catocala,” pp. 229–232.