158 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [April, '14 



never scarce here before, and even the Monarch and the Vice- 

 roy were among the rarities. Scarcer than ''hens' teeth" was 

 the "Goat Weed Butterfly" and the drought actually burned 

 up its food plant, Crofon capifatiim. Hardly a Grapta was to 

 be seen and only an occasional "Red Admiral." 



In September, when the rains came, a few Cloudless Sul- 

 phurs, Dwarf Yellows and Little Sulphurs, but not a nicippe, 

 flitted about the straggling flowers in the creek beds. 



It was a great year for the Argynnids, as we said before, 

 and perfect clouds of them hung over the milkweed flowers, 

 magnificent Cybeles and occasional Idalias, those splendid "Sil- 

 ver Underwings." At one sweep of the net one could take a 

 dozen Cybeles. Some of my school boys took a few of the 

 "Red-spotted Purples," but, all in all, it was a gloomy butter- 

 fly year. However, the poet has told us that every cloud has 

 a silver lining, and the silver lining to the 191 3 cloud was the 

 great abundance of Catocalae. The season began early with 

 the usual number of ilia, yielding some splendid varieties, 

 the "white spots," "the pale front wings" and some with the 

 top side of the forewing almost black, but never a yellow hind 

 wing, such as the Senior Author took two years ago. Epione 

 was fairly common and residua in great numbers. Innuhens 

 and its varieties came later than usual and scinfillans outdid 

 itself in its varieties and beauty. One splendid specimen had 

 intensely black front wings with an almost white outer border 

 and lacking the suffused boundary. Habilis was very plentiful, 

 as also palaeogama, with its varieties, annida and phalanga. 

 Better than all else, the very giant of "Underwings," vidiiata, 

 always heretofore scarce in central Missouri, was almost com- 

 mon. The Senior Author and ]\Ir. George Dulany took quite 

 forty between the middle of July and the last of August. Perry 

 Glick took numbers of it in Caldwell County and shared equal- 

 ly with the Pike Countians in catches of the usually rare 

 nehulosa and junctura. It was distinctly an ilia-e pione-residua- 

 palaeogama-hahilis-viduata year. 



From pupae of bred larvae, the first imagoes of illecta 

 emerged June the 14th and that was the "beginning of the 



