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Journal of the Lepidopterists' Society
duced by ecological factors such as scarcity of the host plant, host plant patch size, scarcity of host plant structures suitable for oviposition, and resemblances of surrounding plants to the host plant. In the present instance, H. hecale might have been induced to oviposit on the grass inflorescence by these properties of the P. vitifolia "island."
Allen M. Young, Invertebrate Division, Milwaukee Public Museum, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53233.
Journal of the Lepidopterists' Society 34(1), 1980,68
JAMES MASON HUTCHINGS (1824-1902): AN EARLY BUTTERFLY COLLECTOR IN CALIFORNIA
J. M. Hutchings is known to have supplied specimens of Parnassius phoebis behrii W. H. Edwards to Henry Edwards (cf. Edwards, 1878; Proc. Cal. Acad. Sci. 11-14). F. M. Brown (1975, Trans. Amer. Entomol. Soc. 101: 1-31) credited him with taking the type specimen of P. behrii near the summit of Mount Lyell, and as possibly being the collector of the type specimen of Parnassius clodius baldur W. H. Edwards. Hutchings undoubtedly collected Lepidoptera for Henry Edwards, and possibly for others. Biographical data on him will be important, especially if additional material originating from him should be discovered in other collections. He did not, however, collect the type specimen of Parnassius behrii (cf. accompanying note, Masters, J. Lep. Soc. 34: 47).
Hutchings was born in England in 1824. He came to the United States as a youth and to California in 1849 after news of the gold discovery reached him in New Orleans. He worked in the mines for a few years before turning to writing and publishing. From 1856 to 1861, he published Hutchings' California Magazine, which was widely acclaimed as one of the best illustrated magazines of its day. In 1855, accompanied by a daguerreian cameraman, he led the first tourist party into Yosemite Valley. His account of this trip appeared in his magazine and was widely reprinted; it is generally credited with stimulating most of the early interest in Yosemite.
Hutchings sold his magazine in 1861 and bought the "Upper Hotel" in Yosemite, which he renamed "Hutchings House." This he operated as a guest house. He was a permanent resident of Yosemite Valley from this time until his death in 1902. One of his first employees in Yosemite was John Muir, who worked for him as a carpenter. He and Muir soon parted company as a result of differences in philosophy involving Yosemite Valley. Hutchings wanted to see the valley commercially developed, while Muir wanted it preserved as a wilderness. [It is unlikely that either of them would be happy with Yosemite today. Although it is preserved in the National Park System, it is the most populated, commercialized, and highly developed part of that system.]
During Hutchings' Yosemite years he continued to explore California's unusual places, and he produced a series of privately published books concerning his travels (e.g., 1877, A Guide to Yosemite; 1886, The Heart of the Sierras; 1894, Yosemite Valley and the Big Trees). In none of these writings did Hutchings mention butterflies. However, he did publish a number of items on other phases of California natural history, including flowers, animals, horned toads and various articles on birds. More complete data on Hutchings is provided by Olmsted (1962, Scenes of Wonder & Curiosity, How-ell-North, Berkeley) and by Farquhar (1965, History of the Sierra Nevada, U. Calif. Press, Berkeley).
John H. Masters, 25711 North Vista Fairways Drive, Valencia, California 91355.