113 



Concerning so-callkd Species. — In answer to Mr. Butler's remarks in 

 Papilio, Vol. IV", pp. 39, 40, I will only say that I am not tjoins? to enter into 

 an argument with that gentleman, because it would be useless. When a man 

 is firmly convinced, as he seems to be, that every slight variation observed in a 

 butterfly from a country where, owing to the want of resident collectors, little 

 or nothing can be learnt about its limits of variation should be at once described, 

 possibly from one or more imperfect or faded specimens, as a " new species," 

 and when the analogous variations in better known allied species are ignored, 

 and such species are described wholesale without the slightest reference to 

 forms .so close that no one can help suspecting a relationship, without figures, 

 and with long wordy descriptions which often omit the only distinctive charac- 

 ters which are important in discriminating such species, then I have no common 

 ground on which to reason with him. 



I only ask your readers who have never had the misfortune to have to work 

 out such species to look at Mr. Butler's paper on Japanese Terias in Trans. Ent. 

 Soc. London, 1880, p. 197, and Mr. Fryer's subsequent remarks in the same 

 publication for 1880, p. 485. 



If they will imagine the same sort of thing repeated a hundred times in other 

 genera they will then understand the nature of the Augean .stable which some 

 day or other will have to be cleaned out by Mr. Butler's successors. 



H. J. Elwes. 



Occurrence of Callidrvas Philea Linn, and Terias Mexicana in Wis- 

 consin. — Dr. J. P. Hoy, of Racine, writes me as follows : "There is a butterfly 

 taken in this county, ten miles from Racine, that I do not know. Color bright 

 yellow; a large blotch of orange near middle of primaries, and a broad (orange) 

 margin to secondaries; expands three and a half inches. As it is in a case I 

 cannot see the under side, but I think it belongs to genus Cal/idryasy This is 

 undoubtedly Cal. Philea, Linn., catalogued as occasional in Texas, but also as 

 having been taken in Illinois, as per American Entomologist, Vol. II, p. 340. 



The species abounds in the tropics from Mexico to Brazil, but I know no other 

 instance of its capture north of Texas. Dr. Hoy also sends an example of 

 Terias Mexicana, taken in same locality as the other, but says that he has seen 

 it also in Grant Co., Wis., on the Mississippi River. W. H. Edwards. 



CoLLECTiNC^ IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA. — The earthquake in Java, or some 

 other disorganizing thing, has played the mischief with butterflies on the Pacific 

 Coast, for this Spring rainy and cloudy weather has been the rule, where here- 

 tofore it has been the rare exception, and the butterflies have suffered corre- 

 spondingly. 



During February and March there was in Southern California scarcely a fine 

 day, and two consecutive not once, and where usually six or seven inches of 

 rainfall is a very fair allowance for the entire winter, twenty-six have now fallen. 



This excessive cloudiness and dewing has apparently killed the brood of Pap. 

 Zo/icaon (there is but one brood, in March, and an occasional precipitation ot 

 solitary examples in July). I have seen but one lone specimen of it this spring, 

 where usually I get dozens. Also Anthocharis Cethura is very scarce ; Lep- 

 tarctia Letia and her three twin sisters have been delayed a month, and all the 

 Geometers have been scarce or entirely wanting. On the other hand Chryso- 

 phanus Helloides was taken March 12th, three months earlier than ever before 

 by me. Lyccstta Sagitifera came a month sooner than heretofore, and I also 

 took a dozen fine L. Sonorensis some weeks in advance of ordinary years. 

 Syneda Socia and .S". Edivardsii have also come early. 



