28 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



moving faster than anyone could follow, and upon reaching the crest, 

 instead of dropping rapidly down the precipice on the eastern side, as 

 they might have been expected to do, they kept right on at the same 

 angle of elevation directly up into the air and out of sight, as if they were 

 going to the moon. In coming up the slope they all made directly for 

 the highest peak, and did not drop over the side of the crest, as they 

 might easily have done. No other species was with them. So, on Mt. 

 Hood, in Oregon, V. Californica flies in countless millions. About the 

 great glacier, at an elevation of 7,000 to 9,000 feet, I have seen them in 

 vast numbers flitting about in the lee of the trees or resting on the ground 

 in the warm spots. I never ascended the high peak of Mt. Hood, 

 but the guides, and every one else who had been high up, spoke of the 

 clouds of this one butterfly to be seen upon the peak. Sometimes the 

 remark was made that " they were all flying in one direction." 



The larval food plant in California is Manzanita. Doubtless the 

 larvae feed also on other plants, as must necessarily be the case in a 

 species so widely spread. The butterfly itself is but rarely seen feeding 

 on flowers. It is often seen at water on the sands of little mountain 

 streams, and is oftenest captured in such places, as its flight is so rapid 

 and strong that it is difficult to capture one on the wing. I had often 

 marvelled that it is so seldem seen on flowers, and at length, several years 

 ago, found it in numbers feeding on sap or dampness that envelops the 

 freshly opening young leaves of fir trees, Abies. They were so eager and 

 absorbed in lapping up this nectar that I could pick them off* with my 

 fingers, or push the cyanide bottle over them without alarming them, and 

 did so capture a number, which is saying a good deal for a butterfly that 

 is so uniformly wild and difficult of approach. From this circumstance, 

 and from other corroborative indications, I judge that the sap oi Abies is 

 their chief food in the imago state. 



This species of butterfly, like P. Cardui, is something of a hoodoo : it 

 is of no value itself, it is usually present when you don't want it, and its 

 appearance seems to be the signal for more interesting species to 

 disappear. It is also of quite a quarrelsome disposition, taking delight in 

 dashing at a nice Argy?mid or other nice thing just as you are about to 

 capture it, and chasing it out of sight. For all these things, and for 

 others, it is no pet of the butterfly man, and if it has recently irrupted 

 into British Columbia the invasion is one that will give the lepidopterists 

 of that country no joy, it is evident, 



