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174
Vol.12: nos.5-6
THYMELICUS L1NE0LA, A EUROPEAN SKIPPER (HESPERIIDiE), NEW FOR NEW JERSEY
On June 26th I caught a skipper along my driveway which I thought was A try tone logan (Edw.). After closer examination I discovered to my surprise that I had found a skipper 1 had never seen before. Collecting New Jersey Lepidoptera only, I was greatly excited. Not being able to identify it satisfactorily with the color plates I have available, I nook one specimen to Mr. C. F. dos Passos who was so kind as to identify my specimen as the European skipper Thymelicus lineola (Ochs.) and showed me Michigan specimens in his collection.
Naturally I went home and caught a nice series of them. All specimens were caught on and around a dozen blooming milkweeds on both sides of my driveway.
1 collect from Cape May to Port Jervis and Lambertville to Newark Meadows, and I never found it any other place. A very few specimens were seen about a quarter of a mile from my driveway. Thymelicus lineola was never caught by any collector in New Jersey before; it ;s not recorded in the New Jersey list of Lepidoptera by John B. Smith, nor in the booklet "Butterflies of New Jersey" by W. P. Comstock. Its home, besides Europe, is Ontario, southern Michigan, and Ohio (Clench, Lepid. News 10: 151), and it recently appeared in Pennsylvania (Ehle, Lepid. News 12: 15-16).
The flying time was about ten days (from June 26th to July 6th). After the latter date, we had some very heavy showers which seemed to cause their disappearance.
For some unexplainable reason, all day-flyers are very scarce this season although we had favorable weather. Many species which were abundant last year did not show up at all. There was not another species of skippers around at the time of catching Thymelicus lineola. With the exception of Pieris rapa, Thymelicus lineola was the most abundant butterfly around. Several times I caught three specimens with one sweep of the net.
Where was the Thymelicus lineola all these years? Why did it show up in such great numbers with all others so scarce? Where did it come from all of a sudden?
Joseph Muller, R. D. 1, Lebanon, N. J., U. S. A.