130 Bulletin of the Brooklyn Entomological Society Vol. XV 



COLLECTING LIBYTHEA BACHMANI. 



By E. L. Bell, Flushing, N. Y. 



It may interest collectors of Lepidoptera to record the taking 

 of two specimens of Libythea hachmani, Kirtland, at Kings Park, 

 Long Island, N. Y., on July 20, 1920, and to give some of the 

 details attending their capture. 



On the afternoon of the day mentioned I had spent a couple of 

 hours collecting along a road running through the woods. Hav- 

 ing met with very little success I was returning home, hot and 

 nearly convinced that there wasn't anything to collect that was 

 worth collecting. As I walked along I saw a butterfly alight 

 among the lower bushes at the edge of the road a short distance 

 ahead of me, and at the moment thought it was one of the 

 Satyrs which were quite common in that neighborhood. As I 

 came nearer to it, it flew up and I saw it was quite a different 

 thing. With a rather quick and erratic flight it flew along the 

 roadside, at times fifteen or twenty feet in the air, and then 

 among the low bushes, pausing an instant on some leaf or bare 

 twig, and then resuming its erratic flight. I managed to overtake 

 it, and during one of its momentary pauses saw that it was 

 Libythea bachmani. It was some distance further along the 

 road before a favorable opportunity came to net it as it perched 

 upon the tip of a dead twig. 



On returning along the road the bushes were eagerly scanned 

 for more specimens and at almost the end of the woods two more 

 were seen playing or fighting just above the top of a small wild 

 cherry tree, about ten feet from the ground. They flew this way 

 and that, darted high in the air and then swiftly descended to the 

 tree top, perched there a few moments, then repeated their antics 

 — all the time keeping well beyond my reach. After about half 

 an hour of this exasperating performance one alighted on a leaf 

 of a branch lower than usual. By a running jump I managed to 

 sweep it into the net. The remaining one played around for a 

 short while longer, but never came within' range of my net, and 

 finally flew off, keeping high above the road. 



This spot was visited daily thereafter for a week but no more 

 of this interesting little butterfly were seen. The two specimens 

 collected were a male and a female, in a rather flown condition. 



