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1952 The Lepidopterists' News 73
FIELD AND TECHNIQUE NOTES
NOTES ON COLLECTING POLYGONIA
To supplement Mr. BOCK'S article on collecting Polygonia faunus smythi Clark (Lep. News. vol. 5: p. 70), I would like to add some observations incurred during a collecting trip to the Great Smoky Mountain National Park between July 17 and 25, 1948. Thanks to Mr. ARTHUR STUPKE, then naturalist of the park, I had virtually complete freedom to hunt wherever I desired and consequently chose sites which varied in elevation. I found P. smythi commonest along the Appalachian trail between the Forney Ridge parking area on Clingman's Dome and Silers' Bald. This trail varies from 6643 to 5620 feet in elevation and crosses many small mountain streams. P. smythi would congregate in groups at the edge of the streams and sit individually on various precipices in the immediate vicinity. It was possible in this environment to collect as many specimens as one desired without unduly exerting oneself. I took twelve specimens from this area alone.
In other sections of the park, P. smythi could also be collected rather easily, but they became scarcer and livelier as the elevation decreased below 4000 feet. In back of the ranger station near the juncture of highways 71 and 73 at an elevation of less than 1000 feet, I saw and captured only one P. smythi.
This past August (17-20), 1951, I had the pleasure of accompanying Mr. & Mrs. LESLIE BANKS to the Ottawa National Forest in the upper peninsula of Michigan. Following a dirt road between rain showers, we collected four species of Polygonia: interrogation's Fabr., comma Harris, faunus faunus Edwards, and progne Cram., the latter two being the most common. Although we collected at the puddles in the road, the easiest collecting and also the most productive of females was at the flowers of Joe-Pye-Weed (Eupatorium purpureum L.) growing profusely at the edge of the road.
We were unable to make any elevation observations because of the uniformity of the terrain. Other species collected in the same manner were: Nymphalis mil-berti Godt., N. j-album Bdv. & Lee, N. antiopa L., and Hesperia laurentina Lym.
DAVID H. Kistner, 5031 N. Kolmar Avenue, Chi cage 30, 111., U.S.A.
THE WEIGHTS OF FRESH AND DRIED BUTTERFLIES
A Colias philodice (Latr.) 9 was caught on 17 October 1951, and placed in the cold store, where it died on 27 October. The wings were removed from the body, and wings and body were weighed separately, before and after they were dried in the warm basement, at 75°-80° F. The weights were as follows:
Fresh (mg.) Dry (mg.) Difference Loss (%)
Body 52.5 28.9 23.6 45
Wings 12.5 8.4 4.1 33
Total 65.0 37.3 27.7 42.6
A Nymphalis milberti (Latr.) which died on 27 November was found to have the following partition of weights:
Body 53.75 25.6 28.15 52.4
Wings 7.50 6.3 1.20 16.5
Total 61.25 31.9 29-35 48.0
Another N. milberti lost 44.0% moisture. It was found that the difference between drying the body at 75°-80° F. and 95° C. was only 7%; the wings weighed the same after both degrees of heat.
P. H. H. GRAY, Box 236, Macdonald College, Quebec, Canada
& R£ATA -erratum
Dr. P. H. H. GRAY has sent the following corrections to his paper "Resuts of humidity tests with Papilio pupae", Lep. News, vol. 5: p. 67; 1951. A
Right column, 4th line: "The wing-radii of the bred ? 9 are not" should be "The wing-radii of the bred £ 9- are also".
Footnote: "one (B) did not emerge" should be "one (G) did not emerge".