THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST, 167 



hand, contain everywhere peculiar varieties and kinds often more local 

 than in the East. In New York we are cut off again from several kinds 

 plentiful in Ohio and Indiana. Our tropical wanderers come to us up and 

 along the coast. I have met, sailing along the Gulf Stream, flights of 

 moths, mostly of one and the same species, which fell on the rigging and 

 sides of the vessel in numbers. In the autumn, on Staten Island, I have 

 captured many Owlet Moths whose true home is the West Indies, such as 

 Perigea Epopea, Aletia Argillacea, Anoniis Erosa. The light houses on 

 the coast attract many moths, and here specimens of ^/(fZ/^/^aw^/'/a Tinais, 

 the Spanish Moth, are not unfrequent in the late summer ; this species 

 breeds in South Florida, as discovered by my friend, Mr. Roland Thaxter. 



Although smaller faunae, limits of particular species, may be traced 

 over the entire eastern portion of the continent, our mountain ranges are 

 the best guide as to changes of a more general character in the Moths. 

 When we get to the Rocky Mountain region we part with most of the 

 Eastern species, though a few traverse the entire continent from East to 

 West. As a whole the Californian and Western fauna resembles the Euro- 

 pean more than the Eastern. In the Butterflies this is seen in the more 

 numerous kinds of Meadow Browns and the presence of a species of 

 Papilio which greatly resembles the common European P. Machaon. 

 In the Moths we have such genera as Netneophila not found in the East ; 

 while, conversely, in the East we have Mexican, or South American forms, 

 which do not seem to ascend the coast on the west side of the Rocky 

 Mountains, such as the genus Cit/ierofiia. These and other facts lead me 

 to a study of the origin of our various structural types of Moths, and the 

 conclusion that we have three proximate sources for our fauna : i. 

 Descendants from a former Northern fauna, which in the Tertiary obtained 

 in Northern Europe, Asia and America ; 2. Immigrants and descendants 

 of a migration from the South which is still going on ; 3. Descendants of 

 a former fauna, proper to North America itself and surviving the Glacial 

 Epoch. An attempt to sort the genera of the family Sphingidae under 

 these three headings will be found in the pages of the American Journal 

 of Science and Arts. 



So true it is that one branch of a subject leads us to questions and 

 matters quite foreign to the immediate enquiry, that here the subject of 

 the geographical range of North American Moths leads us into myth and 

 poetry. For, in finding out that we have species of moths closely related 

 to or identical with some found on other quarters of the globe, the ques- 



