ackerj STUDY OF MOTHS AXD BUTTERFLIES 339 



appearance and habits. The Monarchs migrate in enormous 

 numbers in the late fall. Great swarms of them have been seen 

 flying south. When I was a child, I remember one October 

 in Cape May, picking up butterflies by handfuls. They were 

 Monarchs migrating and were overtaken by a storm which blew 

 them into the ocean. When their wings were wet they could not 

 fh\ In places the strand was red with them. I picked up all 

 I could earn.' and took them to the house where I was staying. 

 Thinking they were dead I placed them in a shoe box without a 

 cover and went out to play. When I came back •the people in 

 the house were nearly frantic with the annoyance of butterflies 

 lighting on their heads and hands and flying all around them. 

 The room was a beautiful sight. I pleaded to have them remain 

 but out thev had to go. I counted sixty-two that flew out of one 

 window — how many went out of the other openings I do not 

 know. 



Just across the road from the Joe Pye patch is a farm where 

 many strange things grow. We gave it the name of "The Drug 

 Farm" because of the many strange things that are raised there 

 and so many things that smell like a drug store. There were 

 plenty of cabbages and cabbage butterflies, (Pieris protodice 

 and Pieris rapae), Common Sulphurs (Colias philodice), which 

 is sometimes called "The Puddle-butterfly". Among them the 

 females were frequently albinos. There were a few aberrations 

 in both families, particularly among the sulphurs. In the "Com- 

 mon Whites", as the cabbage butterflies are sometimes called, 

 a very delicate shade of yellow could be found, sometimes on the 

 forewings, again in the hindwings, and sometimes a little on both 

 wings. These little insects were so numerous that the children 

 amused themselves by seeing how many they could get in their 

 nets before emptying them. They frequently had fifteen or 

 eighteen at one time. 



There was something new every day. In the tomato patch 

 there were queer little tomatoes shaped like an egg, though not 

 so large and of a paler shade of red than our tomatoes and very 

 numerous. On these vines we found a larva, or caterpillar, of 

 the Tomato moth (Protoparce sexta). Each day we went to 

 look at the "worm" until it disappeared. In our ignorance again 

 we accused the farmer of killing it. A few days after a happy 

 thought came to us to dig and see if the larva had buried to go 



