REPORT OF THE SOCIETY 33 



SOME PROBLEMS IN BOTANY AND ENTOMOLOGY 



Canon V. A. Huard, Quebec 



It very often happens, in the study of science in general, and that of Natural 

 History in particular, that we find ourselves confronted with a fact which com- 

 pletely upsets our ideas. When we have first convinced ourselves of the reality of 

 the fact, a necessary step, we endeavour to discover an explanation, and one is not 

 always forthcoming. The majority of naturalists have had at one time or another 

 an experience of this kind. For my part I have been not a little astonished to 

 find Aesculus hippocastanum L. the Indian Chestnut or "horse chestnut." This 

 tree, of Asiastic origin, belongs to the flora of Southern America. Again in the 

 case of the Hazel, Corylus avellana, a tree belonging to South Europe, I found a 

 specimen in a vigorous state of growth at Neuville (Portneuf), that is to say, as 

 in the case of the Chestnut, on the North bank of Saint Lawrence. It is, however, 

 in the domain of entomology that I have had the most unexpected surprises in 

 this direction. Erebus odoraL. is a large butterfly whose wings spread more than 

 6 inches, and are greyish brown in colour, marked with black and white wavy 

 lines and spots. This is a tropical species which has been seen occasionally at 

 Montreal and at Metis. Despite this fact, however, the Rev. Dr. Fyles, who has 

 collected in the environs of Quebec for forty years, has never taken it, and it is 

 not represented in his rich collection. 



Nevertheless, I took one specimen of it near the Basilica of Quebec in the 

 month of July, 1909. Why was that single specimen found there, how did it find 

 its way there? To these questions we know of no reply. But here is something 

 no less extraordinary. On the 6th of May 1881, and that date shows at least that 

 I have long since lost the right of styling myself a young entomologist, my collec- 

 tion was enriched by a specimen of Stretchia plusiiformis Hy. Edw., taken in the 

 seminary building itself at Chicoutimi. This is a night flying butterfly, of 

 medium size, with blackish front wings, and hind wings of a paler hue. But, 

 the astonishing part of this occurrence is that Stretchia plusiiformis is a species 

 'belonging to California, Colorado, Nevada and Oregon, in other words Western 

 America. And here we capture an individual specimen in the heart of Eastern 

 America. How could such a thing come about? Who shall say? Here then, is 

 a mysterious fact of which we must be content to have no explanation. But in 

 any case, it is an extraordinary fact, that the only specimen of Stretchia plusii- 

 formis ever seen in the East, should have been taken at Saguenay. so far from 

 from that part of America where this species is indigenous. 



But even the above is nothing compared with the entomological surprises I 

 experienced several years ago, when someone brought me a beautiful specimen of 



