330 



PSYCHE. 



[March — April I'^90. 



DIARY OF A HIBERNATING BUTTERFLY. 



BV SAMUEL HUBBARD SCUDDER, CAMBRIDGE, MASS. 



Doubtless in acknowledgment of the 

 honor just conferred upon it by giving 

 it a new and euphonious name in my 

 " Butterflies of the Eastern United 

 States," a fine specimen of Eiivanessa 

 antiopa came to pass the winter with 

 me, taking up its station in the cellar 

 directly beneath the room where the 

 Cambridge Entomological Club holds 

 its meetings. It was first noticed about 

 the middle of November, before the 

 cellar windows had been closed for the 

 winter. It was then pitched on the top 

 of the cellar-wall where this was ex- 

 posed in the passage-way down stairs. 

 For fear of its falling a prey to the mice 

 which had been seen here, it was driven 

 away, when it at once took up its station 

 about eight inches above the cellar floor 

 on the " riser" of the first stair, just 

 beneath the projecting edge of the first 

 *' tread," the extremity of its wing pro- 

 jecting beyond the tread. Here it re- 

 mained all winter, until the last days of 

 February, not, however, without moving ; 

 the position of the wings was marked 

 with a pencil on the edge of the tread, 

 and it was found to have shifted its po- 

 sition repeatedly — some six or eight 

 times — sometimes forward, sometimes 

 backward, within a range of about an 

 inch ; about the middle of January its 

 position changed from perfectly hori- 

 zontal to slightly oblique, the head 



downward, and on the very morn- 

 ing of the day it left the station 

 it was noticed to have shifted a very 

 little more, increasing its obliquity. 

 During all this time the wings were 

 kept in an identical position, back to 

 back, the fore wing thrust forward just so 

 much as to bring the tooth at the tip of 

 the lower median nervule of the fore 

 wing exactly midway between the sub- 

 costal tooth of the same wing and the 

 tooth of the upper median nervule of the 

 hind wing. This is exactly the position 

 of complete repose in summer. The 

 station chosen was a curious one, being 

 directly beneath the spot where the right 

 foot, always first advanced, was placed 

 upon the first tread, and a movement of 

 air must at least have been perceptible 

 to it whenever one went upstairs or 

 down, but in only a single instance was 

 any apparent agitation produced ; this 

 was when Jthe cellar doors ten feet 

 awav from it were opened, on a tolerably 

 cool day, and for three hours men were 

 passing back and forth bringing in 

 wood ; then a slight vibration of the 

 wing-tips was seen, but no sound could 

 be detected. 



In a wintering Polygonia observed by 

 Goossens in Paris, the fore wings re- 

 sponded to the warmth of the weather 

 by creeping forward and backward be- 

 tween the hind wings a very little, with- 



