38 EI^TOMOLOGICAL SOOIEIY OF ONTAETO. 



At four o'clock the space between a and b was nearly half an inch, but b yet letained its 

 horizontal attitude. At 4.10 the space between them had increased, and the point of 

 part b was drooping. 4.45 — the tail had greatly extended, hanging crumpled and 

 twisted. At 5.10 the moth opened its wings and walked away when I ceased taking 

 observations. I allowed it to live over night. It was a female, not a first-class 

 specimen. It measures four and a half inches in expanse of wing, and three and a 

 quarter from the base of the antennte to the end of the tail. It is heavily edged with 

 maroon on the outer angle of front wing, and more lightly on the hind wing and outer 

 curve of the tail. There is a row of brown dots on the veins of front wings, three- 

 eighths ol an inch from the coloured edge, which are not seen on any other native 

 specimen in the collection. As it matured the abdomen contracted until the white bands 

 united, and the green disappeared. 



OBSERVATIONS ON THE SEASON OF 1895. 

 By J. Alston Moffat, London, Ont. 



Hadeoia Arctica, Fig. 22, one of the climbing cut worms, the moth of which is seen 

 to some extent every season, and in some seasons quite plentifully, appeared in the 

 early part of June in extraordinary profusion, forcing itself on the attention of the most 

 unobservant, and continued for over four weeks to be a complete nuisance to the com- 

 munity. It was to be seen everywhere ; shop windows were rendered unsightly by 

 their presence, dead and alive. They would enter dwellings, hiding away for the day 

 in the folds of curtains and clothing, alarming the owners needlessly about their safety, 

 and making themselves generally obnoxious in a hundred ways. I received inquiries 

 concerning them from various directions, which went to prove conclusively that this state 

 of things existed from the Niagara river on the east to the Detroit river on the west ; 

 and from the north shore of Lake Erie to the south 

 shore of Lake Huron. How much further they 

 extended I have not learned. 



The Genus Argynni.«, in some of its species, is to 

 be seen more or less abundantly every season. 

 But 1895 gave them forth in numbers both of species 

 and specimens beyond all that I have ever seen 

 before. During July there were five species on the 

 wing at the same time. Cybele, Aphrodite, dtlantis, 

 Myrma, and Bellona. Upon large patches of fiower- Fig. 22. 



ing weeds that were attractive to them they congre- 

 gated in force, and when disturbed, they would rise in such a mass as to obscure the 

 view bejond. It was my first experience with Atlantis. On the twenty-seventh of 

 June I was in a locality where Argynnis was flying profusely. Cybele and Aphrodite 

 were abundant, but there were some that seemed to be different from either, and with 

 which I was not familiar. They were smaller in size and with a noticeable black border 

 on the hind wings, so I captured some for comparison. All the Atlantis in the Society's 

 collection are labelled " Montreal," and are quite uniform in size and markings. There 

 were none of those I took that were quite so small, or with so much black in the border. 

 On the first of July I secured more, and found that they varied considerably. Some of 

 them I could not say whether they were small Cybele or large Atlantis, so to settle the 

 doubt, I sent an example to Mr. W. H. Edwards, who promptly informed me that it was 

 Atlantis. I saw them plentiful at Sarnia, and Mr. W. E. Macpherson, of Prescott, Ont., 

 said it was the same at Windsor. On the sixth of August I received several specimens 

 from Mr. Macpherson, taken by him at Prescott. They were much nearer to the Quebec 

 type than the majority of those I took here ; with a little additional black in the border 

 of tha hind wings, they might not be separable. I may state here as a matter of some 

 interest that I never took at Hamilton what I consider to be typical Aphrodite, with the 

 dark cinnamon-brown shade on the under surface of the hind wings, which is compara- 

 tively common about London, and easily obtained. 



