J 40 [June 16, 
trote.] 
adjacent valleys changes. We have essentially one fauna, which is arrested 
at the St. John’s river by a tropical colony inhabiting Southern Florida. 
The Labrador fauna is a true extension of the Canadian, and the Noctuidae 
of that region may be found again inhabiting the sides of Mount Wash- 
ington. I disagree then with Staudinger, who includes the Labrador with 
the European fauna, believing him to be misied by the identity of alpine 
species with our more northern forms. On the west our fauna extends 
downwards along the table-lands occupying the centre of the Mexican 
peninsula, the hot and low lands on either side being occupied by a differ- 
ent and tropical fauna. Singularly enough some more northern west 
coast species have been found in Maine and Canada. There must be a 
northern outlet in the mountain ranges of the Pacific coast. The princi- 
pal feature in the distribution of our fauna is the migrations. A yearly 
zodlogical wave sets in from Mexico and the West Indies, and carries on 
its crest a number of light-winged Noctuidw, which eventually range up 
our entire coast, and are found in Maine in the fall. The most import- 
ant to us of these species is the cotton worm, which I have studied a long 
time. This moth, which feeds on the perennial cotton of South and Cen- 
tral America, must have visited our mainland for years before the cultiva- 
tion of our annual cotton gave ita lodgment on our soil. Now it in- 
creases by the rich fields offered as food for its larva, and traverses the 
country in successive broods from the South to the Ohio river. Beyond 
this it flies, but it ig doubtful that it again accomplishes its transformations 
on a substitute food-plant in the fall. The probability is that it does. 
[ originally showed that, in the South, it would feed on nothing but cot- 
con, from my observations and experiments. I find now that Prof. Riley 
occupies my ground, and states that it only feeds on cotton and that its 
northern journey is fruitless. I originally discovered that the whole 
inquiry, from an economical point of view, hinged upon the discovery 
of its successful hibernation, after being the first to positively ascertain 
that it wintered as a moth. 
In my paper (1874) I suggested that this might still be extra limital or 
confined to a narrow southern strip of land in Texas or Florida. In this [ 
was probably mistaken, and it may be that it has a hold throughout the 
cotton belt. But I wish to point out distinctly that this was the matter to be 
ascertained, and that my theory is to-day the correct one. It showed that 
the area of successful hibernation was the point for future enquiry, and 
I suggested in the Z'rébune the means to get this information, and the 
preventive measures to be employed, if this region was such as could be 
dealt with by preventive measures in the spring. As to its extra limital 
origin, Professor Riley finds a short letter anticipating my theory, but 
necessarily presenting few facts as the range of North American Noctuida 
was not then known. However this may be, neither Prof. Riley nor I 
knew of this letter, when I read my paper in 1874, five years after I had 
formed my conclusions. To suggest that my theme was not original, is 
to deal unfairly with the facts. I have shown that Prof. Riley did not 
