34 



of the following places along the route by which the moth must have most probably- 

 come to us. but in nearly every instance the insect was not observed, and did not, at alL 

 events, appear in any remarkable numbers : — 



Rochester, N. Y. — No observation. 



Buffalo, N. Y.— No reply. 



Ithaca, N. Y. — No observation. 



Akron, Ohio — Professor Claypole writes, " I have not seen the cotton moth here 

 this year. Since the beginning of September I have had twenty-eight students, more or 

 less eagerly in pursuit of Lepidoptera, but I did not see this insect in their collections." 



Dayton, Ohio — Mr. G. It. Pilate writes, "I have not noticed Aletia argillacea this 

 year ; but two years ago, late in the fall, thousands of them were seen around the electric 

 lights for a number of days. I do not agree with Mr. Grote that they all come from 

 the south. When I lived in the centre of this city, some five or six years ago, I took a 

 specimen that had just emerged from a pupa in my garden ; the wings were still soft, 

 and when placed in a glass, it emitted the red fluid that all freshly emerged Lepidop- 

 tera do." 



Lafayette, Ind. — Not observed. 



Champaign, Illinois — Professor Forbes, Director of the State Laboratory of Natural 

 History, writes, " The assistant who has had special charge of the electric light collections 

 this season tells me that he visited the light several times on favourable nights in Sep- 

 tember and October, but took no Aletias. We did not ' sugar,' however, but I think it 

 unlikely that any extensive migration should have occurred here without our notice." 



Carbondale, Illinois. — Mr. G. H. French, Professor of Natural History in the Nor- 

 mal University of Southern Illinois, writes that he has been too much occupied with 

 other matters to make any observations during the past season, but in a collection sent 

 him from Galesburg, in the northern part of the State, he found a specimen of Aletia 

 argillacea, dated October. 



Coalburgh, West Virginia. — No observation. 



Allegheny, Pennsylvania. — No observation. Dr. Hamilton writes that " the locality 

 would be difficult to reach by a moth coming from the cotton regions, as from three to 

 five hundred miles of rugged, uncultivated, mountainous country would intervene. The 

 Alleghany Mountains, commencing in New York, are north and east, and circle round 

 south through Maryland, and westwardly through Virginia, West Virginia, and half 

 through Tennessee, thus shutting off all communication from the south." 



In consequence of the geographical features referred to by Dr. Hamilton, I took it 

 for ^ranted that the moth must have come to us from the south-west, and accordingly 

 made my enquiries from friends along its probable route. It is very remarkable 

 that the swarm that visited this Province should not have been seen at any of the places 

 mentioned above. 



In order to further determine the probable route of our swarm of cotton moths, I 

 obtained from the Observatory at Toronto, through the kindness of Mr. Carpmael, the 

 Superintendent of the Meteorological Service, a full abstract of the direction and velocity 

 of the winds for each hour during the first nine days of October — a period sufficient to 

 cover the time occupied by the flight of the insects. The observations were, of course, 

 made at Toronto, but they are applicable to Port Hope and Hamilton, and all this portion 

 of the Province of Ontario. 



On October 1st, the winds were south-west, and very light, averaging 3£ miles 

 an hour, till 6 o'clock a.m. ; south, with increasing velocity up to 16 miles an hour, till 

 noon ; then south-west, and gradually dying away till midnight. Average direction for 

 the day, south, 27° west; mean velocity, 6.21 ; resultant velocity, 5.84. 



October 2nd, south-east till 8 a.m., and very light ; from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. changing 

 from west to north, north-west and back to south-east, rising to 9 miles an hour ; during 



