124 THE entomologist's record. 



noiseless, moving about by preference in the mist and darkness. One 

 never wants to be introduced to them, they can have no names. I not 

 unfrequently saw at midnight a lighted torch, making as it were its un- 

 aided way over the surface of the creek. It was fixed to the prow of a 

 boat, in which were two or more Indians spearing cat-fish l)y its light. 

 Keading in front of my tent one afternoon, I was startled by a shadow 

 falling across the page, and became aware of the jiresence of an Indian, 

 standing a few feet away, whose approach I had not heard. Although 

 I knew he wanted something, he did not speak at once and, for my part, I 

 waited. At length it appeared, speaking slowly and with an absent 

 look in his eyes, that he wanted to borrow my boat to fish from. I 

 agreed, provided he would keep it only so long and deliver it again at the 

 tethering place clean and with unbroken oars. He promised and kept 

 his word. As men are, it was an exercise of virtue that he did so. 



Towards the end of June, the American genus Cutocala put in an 

 appearance, and liy the beginning of July, fully occupied the field. 

 I say " American " genus advisedly. Somewhere I read that somebody 

 in England had taken an example of Catocala fraxini. The particulars 

 of the public reception tendered him on the occasion did not transpire. 

 Why, we have in America one hundred species, more or less, and, from 

 the vicinity wliere I was collecting, about thirty-five have been listed 

 by my industrious friend Mr. E. P. Van Duzee. The species in America 

 which comes nearest to fraxini, is the relicta of my departed friend 

 Walker. It is a little smaller than fraxini, the fore- wings variably 

 broken up with creamy- white, the narrow band on the black secondaries 

 also white. A species most appropriately named the '' widow." But 

 I have noticed, in certain examples, the occurrence of a faint blue tinge 

 on the edges of the white band, a memory of the blue-gray of 

 fraxini. A friend of mine in Albany told me that, assisted only by his 

 sons, he had taken 185 specimens of relicta in a single night. I 

 asked him to take off one of the numbers, either the 1, or the 8, or even 

 the 5. He firml}' declined to do so. I asked him to show me the 

 specimens. He pulled out a drawer full. I did not count them ; I 

 merely observed to him tliat he had apparently only kept the i^erfect 

 ones. About my camp tlie Catocalas swarmed like bats. It was not 

 even necessary to sugar afresh every night. A tree, forgotten since the 

 night before, still had attractions for numbers frightened from the freshly- 

 baited places. I caught epione, retecta, insohibilis, residua, relicta, amatrix, 

 concumbens, parla, vJtronia, ilia, cerofjama, communis, piatrix, habilis, 

 clintoni, crataegi, polygav.ia, praeclara. Of these, cerogama was the 

 commonest. Often I saw at least twenty hovering about or settling 

 on the bait. At light, in the tent, I captured about this time several 

 rare Noctnidae, which did not come to " sugar." The best, perhaps, 

 were Paiithea acronyctoides, Oncocnemis riparia and Plnsia thyatiroides. 



By the middle of July I had to break camp and take my captures 

 home. It had l)een a happy time, stolen from Death and Bad Luck, 

 full of Life itself strengthened by work. A time to realize the truth of 

 Kepler's assertion tliat this world itself is heaven in which we live and 

 move and are, we and all mundane bodies. The new species I had 

 hoped for had been gathered. There were half-a-dozen of them ; one 

 curious Deltoid, interesting me much, was Pallachira bivittata, a species 

 sent me also, at about the same time, by my good friend Dr. Thaxter, 

 from Massachusetts. 



