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1955
The Lepidopterists' Neivs
15
FIELD NOTES
THE FOODPLANT OF ERYNNIS PACUVIUS
Although the foodplant and early stages of many of the Erynnis are known, such is not the case with Erynnis pacuvius Lintner, whose early life is still a mystery to entomologists.
While not overly common in Boulder County, Colorado, E. pacuvius is found in some numbers in a couple of general areas. It was while collecting in one of these areas, specifically the old Railroad Grade between Glacier Lake and Sunset on June 20, 1954, in company with LINCOLN and JANE BROWER, that I had my only opportunity to observe a female E. pacuvius about to oviposit. On a rather steep, open, grassy hillside I watched as a female hovered about and beneath the brambly branches of a shrub belonging to the New Jersey Teas. This was later identified for me by WILLIAM WEBER, Professor of Botany at the University of Colorado, as Ceanothus fendleri Gray.
Observing carefully the spots at which the female seemed to be ovipositing, I shortly discovered two single eggs attached to the twigs themselves. Gathering the branches containing these eggs I returned to the car. It was my intention to rear the species, but subsequent developments of this particular day made it such a hectic one that the eggs were lost in the shuffle. It is reasonable though, to believe that Ceanothus fendleri is the foodplant and not just an oviposition site, inasmuch as E. pacuvius seems to be limited to the areas where Ceanothus is plentiful.
I am in hopes that the coming summer will enable me to establish beyond doubt the fact that this is the true foodplant.
DONALD Eff, 820 Grant Street, Boulder, Colo., U.S.A.
FURTHER REMARKS ON THE HABITS OF NYMPHALIS MILBERTI
In a short note on the habits of Nymphalis milberti (Lep. News 4: 13; 1950) I described the manner in which these insects appear in the early spring after hibernation, much more commonly than during the summer. It seems to me that anything from the literature which sheds further light on this question would deserve mention in The Lepidopterists' News. We cannot all read all the available papers, and usually these things are come across only by accident.
I was recently privileged to read Dr. E. B. FORD'S fine book Butterflies. I have found there reference to several British butterflies which start hibernating in July, soon after emergence (p.103). One of the species mentioned is Aglais urticce. From the excellent color photos in the book, I cannot make out any external difference between this butterfly and our Nymphalis milberti. I do not think that we should place too much importance on the difference in genus names. Often there is not very close cooperation between workers on opposite sides of the Atlantic. I have seen N. milberti referred to as Aglais milberti, though I have not been able to learn when or why the name was altered. There is another European species, Nymphalis polychloros, which seems, in the same way, to be the counterpart of our N. calif ornica Bdv. HOLLAND writes of N. calif omica (he uses Vanessa) "It somewhat closely resembles the European V. urticee". This seems to be the result of a muddle, not unusual I believe, with HOLLAND.
While on the subject I would like to add some more comments on my article referred to above. Since writing this I have increased my knowledge of the butter-