184 THE entomologist's record. 



wing until July and August, laying eggs all the time, so that the 

 insect may be found in its earlier stages throughout most of the sum- 

 mer," and that " the perfect insect lives a full year, mingling on the wing 

 with its own progeny, and witnessing the decay and renewed growth 

 of the plant which nourished it." He also holds that no A. arcMppm 

 born northward ever lays eggs the same season. All of which tends 

 to show that whilst the fact that the species migrates is well known, 

 no sufficiently accurate observations by trained naturalists are forth- 

 coming to say actually what its mode of migration really is. Edwards' 

 statement that there are several broods in West Virginia — eggs laid 

 during April produced butterflies at the end of May, eggs laid on June 

 1st produced imagines by June 25th, eggs deposited by this brood 

 produced butterflies towards the end of July, whilst eggs laid July 

 29th-30th, produced imagines which began to emerge on August 20th, 

 and the final brood was from eggs laid August 30th, the butterflies 

 commencing to appear on September 29th {Canadian Entomolofijst, xi., 

 p. 289) — suggests continuous-broodedness of the most pronounced type. 

 A note from Abbot's MSS. indicates pupa of A. arcMppus on April 

 25th, that emerged May 11th (Canadian Entowoloi/ist, iv., p. 7i), so 

 that there is probably a brood before the earliest one mentioned by 

 Edwards, or the first brood is earlier in some years than in others. 

 Lintner gives the species as triple-brooded in New York. It is unfortu- 

 nate that Scudder, who has written so much about this species, is utterly 

 at variance on this point with the observations of almost every other 

 American entomologist. His account, published in F.<<ijcJie for July, 

 1875, of the habits of this species, and just referred to, was so improb- 

 able, that one is hardly surprised at Edwards' careful working out of 

 the real facts of its life-history (Psyche, December, 1878), in which he 

 showed that the hybernating females came early from their winter 

 quarters, began to lay eggs at once, and died directly after, and it is 

 much to be regretted that Scudder repeated his statements as to its 

 life-history and habits in his later work in 1881. As Edwards 

 remarks (Canadian Entomologist, xiii., p. 214), if Scudder's life-history 

 of the insect had been even approximately accurate, it would be a sort 

 of Metheusaleh among butterflies, and instead of designating this 

 phenomenal butterfly "The Monarch," it would be the correct thing 

 to dub it " The Patriarch." 



However little definite information there is about the spring migra- 

 tion oiA.archippus, a great number of observations have been recorded of 

 a habit that is certainly unknown in any of our most observed Palfearctic 

 migrating species. This is the habit of swarming in the autumn. In 

 some seasons the species has, at this time of the year, been observed 

 in vast flocks, moving from place to place, and on these movements a 

 theory has been based that the species returns to its subtropical haunts 

 to winter. Scudder Avrites of this return journey as if it were proved 

 beyond question of dispute. Moft'at says; "That it migrates southward 

 in the autumn in immense bodies, sometimes numbering millions, is 

 well known, and has been frequently observed ; therefore, it must 

 return in the spring, but by scattered individuals, to take up the 

 territory it vacated in the fall," and again he writes : " A longer term 

 of life in the mature state than is allotted to butterflies generally, to 

 enable it to fulfil its seasonal functions, seems to be required, for, if 

 the same individuals that leave the north about the end of August or 



