428 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM. vol. x.^xi. 



son and Rae, with a veiy few annotations, was prepared hy Adam 

 White, and is to be found in the second vohime of Richardson's narra- 

 tive of the journey. " Sixteen species of butterflies, taken chiefl}^ 

 along- the Mackenzie River, and on the Arctic coast '^ near its deUa, are 

 mentioned. 



In the summer of 1862 Mrs. Christina Ross, wife of Bernard R. 

 Ross, who was then in charge of Mackenzie district for the Hudson's 

 Bay Company, collected a large number of Initterflies at Fort Simpson, 

 as well as at other ])oints on the Mackenzie River and in the Great 

 Slave Lake region. A considerable portion of Mrs. Ross' collection 

 found its way into the hands of 'V^\^illiam H. Edwards, of Coalburg, 

 West Virginia. In the three volumes of his great work on North 

 American buttertiies Edwards frequently refers to species obtained 

 from Mrs. Ross. 



At about the same period Woldemar Geffcken, of Stuttgart, (ler- 

 man}', received several large consignments of lepidoptera from officials 

 of the Hudson's Bay Company. These were said to have l)een collected 

 by Indian boys and girls in the region between Hudson Bay and Lake 

 Athabaska. The late Dr. Herman Strecker, of Reading, Pennsyl- 

 vania, afterwards came into possession of this material, and published 

 an annotated list of thirteen species in his Lepidoptera, Rhopaloceres 

 and Heteroceres. With the exception of Lake Athabaska, which is 

 mentioned in connection with but two or three species, no definite 

 localities are given — merel}^ a vague reference to the general region 

 between Hudson Bay and Lake Athabaska. 



Small collections of l)utterflies have been made from time to time 

 in various portions of the north b}' exploring parties sent out by the 

 Canadian Geological Surve}^ and are now in the Government collec- 

 tions at Ottawa. In the early summer of 1888 R. (r. ]\IcConnell 

 journeyed down the Liard River to Fort Simpson, having crossed the 

 Rockies from the Pacific. He collected four species of butterflies at 

 the Devil's Portage, on the Liard (longitude VHV 10'). In June and 

 July of the same year Frederick Bell, an official of the Hudson's Bay 

 Compan}", made a small collection at Fort Simpson at the instance of 

 Mr. McConnell, securing ten species. During the same season Wil- 

 liam Ogilvie, while making an exploration of the lower Mackenzie 

 Basin, took five species of butterflies, which were listed, together with 

 the two collections mentioned above, in the Annual Report of the 

 Canadian (Geological Survey for 1887-88. 



During the summer of 1892, Miss Elizabeth Taylor, daughter of 



"Arctic Searching Expedition, II, ISol. 



''Richardson's locality, "Arctic coast, between 675° antl 68°," is commonly sup- 

 posed to have been somewhere in the delta region of the Mackenzie River. His 

 "Arctic coast" specimens, however, probably were collecteil east of the mouth of 

 the Mackenzie, as butterflies were taken by the party as far east as Cape Krusenstern. 



