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1957
The Lepidopterists' News
229
soil and moss. After jamming the jar full of cuttings from the host plant, I tie over the whole thing a large flour sack. I confess that this arrangement is nearly as difficult to service as a sleeve. But on the other hand, the amount of folage which can be made available at one filling is many times in excess of the best one could hope to get into a sleeve, restricted to the scattered branches of a growing tree.
1 have employed the oil cans with no arrangement for keeping the leaves fresh, simply renewing them each day. This is actually the least work of all. If only very small twigs are clipped, there is almost no debris to be removed. A good padding of moss will absorb moisture from the excrement of the larvas, so that cleaning will not be necessary for a long time. The drawback is that the leaves wither very quickly. The container must be kept in a cool place, out of the sun, conditions which might not suit some species.
It is surprising how crude a device will sometimes prove satisfactory. On one occasion having found a half grown brood of Nymphalis milberti larvae, I was uncertain whether they were worth keeping or not. Finally I put them in a pliofilm bag with a bunch of nettles, tied up the mouth of the bag, and hung it in a window. Every one of those caterpillars safely transformed into a full-sized, perfect butterfly. The following year I found another batch of these larvae, and tried the same stunt with them. They all died about the time of pupation. It may be that some infection got into the second bag that failed to gain access to the first. A fungus disease would of course be greatly aggravated by damp and stuffy conditions in the bag. But I still think that the experience adds force to the warning I have given above: that it does not pay to arrive at a conclusion before careful study and a number of trials.
R.R. 1, Marine Drive, Wellington, B. C, CANADA
A MIGRATION OF BUTTERFLIES IN BOMBAY STATE, INDIA
On October 19, 20, and 21, 1957, I caught eleven species of butterflies from migrating groups in the Ahwa, Dangs area of the Western Ghats. This was not a great mass movement but rather a steady three-day movement of dozens and hundreds of butterflies in a southerly direction. Only a few individuals were distracted by the flowering plants of Poinsettia, Lantana, Bougainville a and several species of Hibiscus. From the migrating groups the following species of butterflies were captured on the Ahwa plateau at an altitude of 1,694 feet:
Danaidae: Danaus limniace Cramer, D. chrysippus (Linne), D. aglea (Cramer), D. genutia Cramer, and Euplcea core (Cramer).
Nymphalidae: Hypolimnas bolina (Linne) and Precis almana (Linne).
Papilionidas: Tros aristolochice (Fabricius), Zetides agamemnon (Linne), Papilio polytes Linne (including males of polytes and females of two forms, "romulus" and ''stichius") and P. demoleus Linne.
E. M. Shull, Ahwa, via Bilimora, Dangs Dist., B. S., INDIA