LiLLiE] THE WA YS OF MONARCH B UTTERFLIES 133 



I have read that monarchs usually appeared in New York 

 early in July; I see them here every year in May. My records 

 were very carefully kept until June, 1905, when they were destroyed 

 by fire; since then such data as I have is just as accurate but some 

 years not all early ones seen were recorded. Beginning with the 

 spring of 191 1 I will give the dates on which I saw the earliest ones, 

 and as I spend much time going about in the spring they were seen 

 in widely scattered places, sometimes miles apart on the same 

 date. 191 1 — May 12th, one, wings faded, not frayed; May 14th, 

 one, wings bright; May 15th, one, wings, faded; May i6th, three 

 at one time, two with wings faded, one, wings bright ; I probably 

 saw others later in the day, but they -may have been the same ones ; 

 May 17th, several, both faded and bright ones; May 19th, several, 

 both faded and bright ones; May i8th, found two eggs of monarchs, 

 the earliest date on which I ever found the egg but the weather was 

 tinusually warm; May 27th found a little monarch caterpillar; 

 19 1 2 — May 17th, one butterfly, wings faded; 19 13 — That was a 

 most remarkable spring for monarchs; I never knew them to appear 

 so early or be so numerous ; the earliest dates on which I saw them 

 were April 2 7th, one, faded ; April 29th, one, faded ; April 30th, three, 

 all faded; May ist, several, all faded; on May 15th I saw a most 

 wonderful sight for that date or any other; I came across a large 

 colony of milkweed plants, the tallest scarcely four inches in 

 height and monarch eggs upon nearly every plant which I ex- 

 amined; I counted twenty eggs upon four little plants growing 

 close together, the tallest one no more than one and one-half 

 inches above ground, I found three eggs upon one leaf not more 

 than five-eighths of an inch in length. I brought home four eggs ; 

 the first two hatched in two days; both little caterpillars died 

 without eating, a very imusual thing for baby monarchs to do, 

 the third became a chrysalis June 4th and the other June 6th, 

 so it will be seen that they developed more slowly than those 

 hatched later in the season, although they were kept in a warm 

 room. 



Believing as I do that the late fall monarchs hibernate in Minne- 

 sota I have tried to make them do so by keeping them in the dark 

 and cold but I have not been successful; I have had some inter- 

 esting experiences with some which I have tried to keep alive and 

 awake all winter, one of which I will relate. One September I 

 brought into the house six of their belated eggs ; although it was 



