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Lambremont: Unidirectional Phoebis flight Vol. 22, no. 3
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Curiously, all butterflies in Bass River State Park rested only on tree trunks, while those caught at Cape May were collected in open grassy meadow mixed with brush.
I want to thank Dr. Cyril F. dos Passos for determining my specimens.
Literature Cited
Comstock, W. P., 1940. Butterflies of New Jersey. A list of the Lepidoptera suborder Rhopalocera occuring in the State of New Jersey; giving time of flight, food plants, records of capture with locality and date. Jour. N. Y. Ent. Soc, 48: 47-84.
Klots, A. B., 1951. A field guide to the butterflies of North America, East of the Great Plains. [Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston.] XVI -f 350 pp., 40 pis.
Mather, Bryant, 1966. Cercyonis pegala pegala (Satyridae): occurrence in Mississippi and variation in forewing maculation. Jour. Lepid. Soc, 20: 186-188.
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MASS ONE-DIRECTIONAL FLIGHT OF CLOUDLESS SULFURS (PIERIDAE) IN ALABAMA AND MISSISSIPPI
A large flight of cloudless sulfur butterflies (Phoebis sennae eubule (L.)) was observed between 11:00 A.M. and 1:00 P.M. September 10, 1967 in west central Albama and extending into Mississippi. This flight was unidirectional, moving toward the southeast, and was noted while the writer traveled westward from Tuscaloosa, Alabama, on U. S. Highway 11. That portion observed covered an airline distance of more than 80 miles. The flight bore many of the characteristics of migrating populations of this species previously described by other workers, namely a steadfast one-directional bearing, a rather uniform height of between five to ten feet above trees, ground and other surfaces, and steady but rapid forward speed estimated at five miles per hour. Williams (1937) referred to regular migrations of P. sennae eubule (which he called "The Traveling Butterfly") occurring in a southward direction in Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas, South Carolina, and New Jersey. These apparently occurred in a north to south movement in the fall, but the return spring flights were less well documented.
Although the number of insects was nowhere near the larger migrating hordes noted by other workers for the cloudless sulfur, several hundred individuals could be seen crossing the highway at a time along a distance of one quarter mile. This approximate density extended to the town of Eutaw, Alabama, where the density began to thin. The flight was, therefore, more abundant along its eastern edge, with the greatest number of individuals noted just west of the intersection of the Black Warrior River and U. S. 11 (U. S. 45). The western edge of the observed flight extended just westward of Meridian, Mississippi, where it was thinly populated, with just a few individuals per quarter mile of road.
Literature Cited
Williams, C. B. 1937. Butterfly Travelers. National Geographic Magazine, 71: 568-85.
Edward N. Lambremont, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana
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