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Volume 33, Number 4
265
association with the California Academy of Science ended. In 1875 he moved to Hay-ward and continued to practice medicine there until his death in 1902. He continued his studies in Natural History during this time and The Cooper Ornithological Club, named in his honor, was organized in 1893.
John H. Masters, 25711 North Vista Fairways Drive, Valencia, California 91355.
Journal of the Lepidopterists' Society 33(4), 1979, 265
A RECENT RECORD OF SPEYERIA IDALIA (NYMPHALIDAE) FROM MANITOBA
On 20 July 1977, Brook Nero (546 Coventry Road, Winnipeg, Manitoba) captured a specimen of Speyeria idalia (Drury) in a prairie field, beside Assiniboine Forest, Charleswood, Manitoba. The specimen is a male with a wingspan of 8.7 cm, and it is not too worn. Assiniboine Forest is a 700 acre tract set aside as a natural park by the city of Winnipeg. It is primarily an area of second growth aspen and oak. The collecting site lies within the Park on the west edge, and has been identified as a potential reclamation area to the original prairie. At present, however, it is largely bluegrass with only a dozen or so surviving prairie forbs.
This is the only recent record for S. idalia in Manitoba. G. S. Brooks (1942, Canad. Entomol. 74: 31-36) recorded a previous record from "Winnipeg" with the comment that it was a stray that "almost certainly does not breed in the province." It is unlikely, however, that either of these Manitoba records represent strays. More likely they are evidence of small colonies of the species still persisting on tiny remnants of virgin prairie. The larval foodplant of S. idalia, the birds-foot violet (Viola pedatifida) is an obligate species of mesic prairies, and adult butterflies seldom stray far from areas where it grows.
The two Manitoba records represent the most northerly known records for S. idalia. However, the species may have been widespread in occurrence on virgin prairie all across southern Manitoba before these prairies were plowed and converted to wheat fields.
John H. Masters, 25711 North Vista Fairways Drive, Valencia, California 91355.
Journal of the Lepidopterists' Society 33(4), 1979, 265-266
ABERRANT SPECIMEN OF LYCAEIDES MELISSA MELISSA (LYCAENIDAE)
The accompanying photo (Fig. 1) shows the ventral view of two fresh specimens I caught while collecting along the road to Deer Creek Campground, west of Heber City (Wasatch Co.), Utah 23 June 1976. The specimen on the right is a normal female Lycaeides melissa melissa (W. H. Edwards); the one on the left represents an aberration in which the postbasal spots are lacking and the postmedian spots are almost lacking. The extremely well developed marginal band of crescents indicates that the specimen is referrable to Lycaeides melissa melissa rather than to L. melissa annetta (W. H. Edwards).
266
Journal of the LEPIDOPTERISTS, Society
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Fig. 1. A, aberrant female Lycaeides melissa melissa, ventral surface. B, normal L. m. melissa female.
I have shown pictures of this aberration to Dr. Cyril F. dos Passos, Dr. John C. Downey, Harry K. Clench and several other knowledgeable lepidopterists and none can recall seeing a similar specimen, which suggests that such an aberration is rare in the species melissa. The aberrant specimen and several normal specimens from the same collecting site have been donated to the Allyn Museum of Entomology, Sarasota, Florida.
William B. Wright, Jr., 18 Clinton Place, Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey 07675.
Journal of the Lepidopterists' Society 33(4), 1979, 266-267
POPULATION OUTBREAK OF CATOCALA PALAEOGAMA (NOCTUIDAE)
Early in the afternoon of 22 July 1978, I encountered large numbers of the oldwife underwing moth, Catocala palaeogama Guenee at Illinois Beach State Park in NE Illinois. The park, located on Lake Michigan approximately 1 mi E of Zion, Lake Co., provides an excellent wildlife habitat. Natural features of this extensive tract include prairie, forest, marsh, dunes, stream and several miles of Lake Michigan shore. Low dunes along the beach support an unusual assemblage of plants, including various dune-associated grasses, bearberry (Arctostaphylos Uva-ursi) and trailing juniper (Ju-niperus sibirica). Black oak (Quercus velutina), sand cherry (Prunus pumila), willow (Salix sp.), New Jersey tea (Ceanothus pubescens), shrubby cinquefoil (Potentillafru-ticosa), prickly-pear cactus (Opuntia polyacantha), wild indigo (Baptisia tinctoria), lead plant (Amorpha fruticosa) and a proliferation of other plants cover dunes further inland, attracting a variety of unusual moth and butterfly species from early spring until late fall.
The concentration of Catocala palaeogama was discovered on trunks of black oak at a sandy picnic area close to the lake and adjacent dunes inland. I first observed the moths when I startled individuals at their resting sites, causing them to fly to other trees nearby. From one to as many as five recently emerged specimens were found roosting on nearly every sizeable tree, always on the shady side, from two to five feet