The text below is grayed out because it is not intended to be read. It is a necessarily imperfect OCR of the original and is only used by a search engine.
|
|
||||
|
40
|
Howe: Vanessa migration
|
Vol. 21, no. 1
|
||
|
|
||||
|
flying in their usual northward flight direction and were not too numerous. We stopped briefly at Quake Lake. With our binoculars we could see cardui flying past.
At 11.00 A.M. we detoured off the main highway and drove westward to the tiny town of Pony which is situated at the foot of 10,500 foot Hollow Top Mountain, one of southern Montana's highest peaks. The road above Pony was not negotiable for our car. As I ascended the trail above Pony in search of butterflies V. cardui became more numerous. After a three-hour hike I came near a precipice on the east face of the mountain and saw a startling sight. An approaching horde of cardui was flying towards me in "waves." As each wave of butterflies flew past another came into view. Each wave must have contained many hundreds or even thousands of individuals. As I looked up they were flying both above and below me and each wave flew due north and disappeared on the far side of the east shoulder of Hollow Top Mountain. This was the heaviest flight I had yet seen, and as I held out my net I scooped in dozens in one sweep. I could have easily repeated this capture many times. In 20 minutes the last wave of cardui had flown past and no more were seen. This spectacle took place at 3:00 P.M. on July 7, on the east slope of Hollow Top Mountain in Madison County, Montana, at an approximate elevation of 6,500 feet. The day was sunny, quite warm, and there was no appreciable wind. Most individuals were flying only about four to ten feet above the ground, although some were flying higher. This Montana flight is the heaviest I have witnessed.
William H. Howe, 822 East Eleventh St., Ottawa, Kansas
|
||||
|
|
||||
|
Book Notice
CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE INSECT FAUNA OF NEPAL. Part I (Special Bulletin of Lepid. Soc. Japan, No. 2). 129 pp., 5 color and 26 monochrome plates. Text in English. Price: equivalent of $5.50 U.S. (including surface rate postage).
The first installment of the report of the Expedition to Nepal Himalaya in 1963 by the Lepidopterological Society of Japan. It contains descriptions and ecology of immature stages of many swallowtail butterflies, a study of 12 kinds of interspecific hybrids between Himalayan and Japanese swallowtails and chromosome studies of Himalayan butterflies and their hybrids. A forthcoming issue will cover descriptions of new species and new records, etc. of butterflies, moths, and other insects.
Contents of Part I: Butterflies of Nepal (immature stages), by S. Igarashi; A study of hybrids between Japanese and Himalayan Papilio, by S. A. Ae; A chromosome study of twenty-eight species of Himalayan butterflies, and A chromosome study of interspecific hybrids of butterflies, both by K. Maeki and S. A. Ae.—Order from: S. A. Aje, Biol Lab., Nanzan University, Yamazato-cho, Showa-ku, Nagoya, Japan.
|
||||
|
|
||||