1877.] Anthropology. 245 
more instance of the rarely observed migrations of butterflies, and is 
printed in the hope of drawing forth accounts of similar observations. 
It is of course impossible to identify the butterfly seen by Mr. Edwards, 
but the swarming habits and lofty, sailing flight of Danaida Plexippus 
very naturally suggest this common insect. There are only two other 
common dark-colored butterflies which would be suspected of moving in 
such migratory swarms, Vanessa cardui and Eugonia j-album, and their 
flight would be different from that described by Mr. Edwards. In- 
stances of the pseudo-migration of Vanessa cardui have been recorded 
in Europe,’ and of a species of Eugonia (Æ. Californica) closely allied 
to E. j-album,in America (by Dr. Behr; Proc. Calif. Acad. Sciences, iii. 
124). It has been suggested that these occasional movements among 
butterflies, which have been observed, especially in the tropics, in several 
genera of the larger forms, might be explained by a scarcity of the food- 
plant of the caterpillar, upon which the female lays its eggs; but this 
would scarcely be applicable to Vanessa cardui, since thistles and mal- 
lows — the food-plant of the larva — are abundant and wide-spread 
weeds. It would be well in observing such moving swarms to collect 
as large a number of butterflies as possible and determine the sex of 
each individual and the comparative maturity of the eggs. 
Tt may be added, that when these observations of Mr. Edwards were 
read before a meeting of the Natural History Society of Boston, Mr. B. 
P. Mann stated that he once observed in Brazil a similar flight of a 
species of Coea or an allied genus. — SAMUEL H. SCUDDER. 
ANTHROPOLOGY. 
ANTHROPOLOGICAL News.—The most thorough and successful 
archeological work done on American soil in the last two years is that 
of Mr. Paul Schumacher in the Kjékkenméddings and graves of the ex- 
tinct races of the Santa Barbara Islands and the mainland. The islands 
examined were San Miguel, Santa Cruz, San Nicolas, Santa Barbara, 
and Santa Catalina. The mainland examined was the coast region of 
Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties, most especially that por- 
ton in the vicinity of Point Sal. The Kjékkenméddings are found 
Wherever sandy ground exists. The deposits in these heaps are so much 
exposed to the driving winds that many of the objects of interest have 
been laid bare and carried off by casual visitors. The same winds which 
denude the shell heaps also expose the large whale’s bones which were 
used by the former inhabitants to separate the bodies in the well-filled 
graves, and in this way serve as veritable tombstones to mark their sites. 
Mr. Schumacher opened several of these ancient sepulchres and took 
therefrom over a thousand skeletons, and with them many articles of 
ornament or use. ‘Che bodies were buried from three to six feet under 
ground, and sometimes from three to five deep; but it is evident from 
1 See American Naturalist, x. 610. 
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