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54
Field Notes
Vol.7, no.2
LYCAEIDES ARGYROGNOMON IN WISCONSIN
A series of Lycaeides was taken near Waubee Lake, in Oconto and Marinette Cos., Wisconsin, on July 1-15, 1952. Specimens were submitted to Professor VLADIMIR NABOKOV. His comments seem to be worth recording, and are given as follows.
"When I realized that the Blue you wanted identified came from Wisconsin, I foresaw it could be either of two species, the closest locality to Wisconsin being in one case S. Michigan and in the other Minnesota.
"S. Michigan specimens that I have studied belonged to the curiously isolated (type loc: Albany, N.Y.) Great Lakes representative of melissa Edw. which I named melissa samuelis (Psyche, 1943, and Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool, 1949) (as you know, it used to be called "scudderi" in former days).
"The Minnesota thing, which I described and figured, but did not name, because of scantiness of material (Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., 1949, p. 505, PI. 5, fig. 54, male, Pequot, Minn.) is a subspecies of argyrognomon (Bergstrasser. Tutt), which I now think is sufficiently distinct from the Canadian (north of 50°) argyrognomon scudderi (type loc: The Pas, west of Winnipeg L., Manit.) to warrant a new subspecific name for it.
"It is this form that your specimens belong to, and you should be congratulated on establishing the interesting Wisconsin range of argyrognomon. It comes very near to a point where it should fly together with melissa samuelis Nab.
"Your beautiful series will be deposited at the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard College, where I have accumulated the most representative series of American Lycaeides in the world. I have nowadays hardly any time at all for working on Lep-idoptera, and you may use any information in this letter for your report on your find to a scientific magazine."
LOUIS GRIEWISCH, 114 Gray Street, Green Bay, Wis., U. S. A.
BUTTERFLIES AND CRAB SPIDERS
Recently I happened to notice in the Bull. Brooklyn Ent. Soc. for 1921 (vol. 16: p. 97) E. L. BELL'S observation of a specimen of Epargyreus tityrus (now = E. clarus) apparently perched unnaturally on a red clover flower, where it was subsequently found to be dead and in the grasp of a crab spider. There may well be other records in the literature of captures of butterflies by non-webspinning spiders, and I would add this note on three species found in such situations.
My only specimen, as it happens, of Ancyloxipha numitor Fab. taken during nine seasons of collecting in Emmet County, Michigan, was found on July 8, 1946, along the gravelly shore of the Straits of Mackinac west of Mackinaw City, where it was first observed in a natural enough position on the common Ox-eye Daisy {Chrysanthemum leucanthemum var. pinnatifidum). Closer examination showed it to be dead and still clutched by a small crab spider.
On August 26, 1952, collecting at Carlisle, Cumberland Co., Pennsylvania, I took two dead butterflies from spiders on Goldenrod (Solidago sp.). These were Libytheana bachmanii Kirt. and a $ Polites mystic Scud.
All three of these butterflies were in good fresh condition (could it be that they had recently emerged before capture?). In all three cases the spider appeared to human eyes to be well camouflaged — white on the white ray flowers ("petals") of the daisy and yellow on the Goldenrod. What might investigation into the ultraviolet vision of butterflies and "camouflage" effectiveness of these spiders indicate? As we raise these questions, we may repeat with further emphasis the amazement expressed in BELL'S note that such strong-flying butterflies should be the victims of capture.
Edward G. Voss, Department of Botany, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich., U. S. A.