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Volume 37, Number 4
317
proper larval development in P. argante than newly unfolding leaves available at the same time. I suspect that full-sized mature leaves of C. fructicosa available in the rainy season are also highly unsuitable to P. argante larvae, before these leaves assume the brittle and blotched appearance that characterizes them in the dry season.
Allen M. Young, Invertebrate Zoology Section, Milwaukee Public Museum, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53233.
Journal of the Lepidopterists' Society 37(4), 1983, 317-318
CHERMOCK, HOVANITZ AND WEBER COLLECTIONS DONATED TO ALLYN MUSEUM
Among other accessions during 1980 and 1981 received by the Allyn Museum of Entomology of the Florida State Museum were three large and very significant collections of Rhopalocera donated by the heirs of Franklin H. Chermock, William Hovanitz and Bernard H. Weber. All of these collections have filled great gaps in the coverage of the Museum's holdings, especially in Arctic species and in the specialty groups of each of the donors.
Franklin H. Chermock collected and studied Lepidoptera assiduously and enthusiastically for over forty years until his death in 1967. Much of his early taxonomic work was done in collaboration with his brother, the late Ralph L. Chermock, and their investigations into the fauna of the Riding Mountains, Manitoba, were enormously valuable scientifically, resulting in the descriptions of many endemic butterflies from that region. Dr. Chermock's interest in Canadian butterflies continued up to the time of his death, and in company with his son, the late Paul W. Chermock, Frank collected and studied the butterflies throughout northern Manitoba and much of the Northwest Territories. The Chermocks, father and son, intended to describe many new taxa from these expeditions and distributed innumerable manuscript "paratypes" of these butterflies, many of which have been named subsequent to Frank's death by other authors. The Chermock collection contained 56,154 specimens (nearly all from the Nearctic), including 20 holotypes, eight allotypes, five syntypes and nearly 2000 paratypes, many from other authors. The "type series" of 56 proposed taxa were included and labelled. About 1300 microscopic genitalia slides and a useful library augmented the collection itself, along with a sizable body of correspondence relating to it. The Chermock material has provided the Allyn Museum collection with its first significant holdings in Arctic and Subarctic butterflies, and we are grateful to Frank's daughter, Mrs. Linda C. Hassinger, for the opportunity to preserve it and make it available for study.
William Hovanitz collected and studied Rhopalocera for about forty years before his untimely death in 1977. He was best known for his genetic and variational studies; the personally collected material for these studies is preserved in his collection. He had no parochial bias, and those groups that were of special interest to him are represented in the collection from throughout their ranges, especially Colias, Argynninae and Oeneis. The Hovanitz material included 23,859 specimens, including more than 4400 Colias, significant numbers of which were from the Arctic of Canada and Alaska and from outside the Nearctic (especially the Andes of Peru, Bolivia, Chile and Argentina). One of the most valuable parts of the collection is material taken along a transect of the Alaska Highway from about Grande Prairie, Alberta (before the beginning of the Highway) to Tok Junction, Alaska. While this collection is particularly strong in Colias, other groups are well represented, such as Clossiana, Oeneis and the "blues." The only type material in the collection were two paratypes of Colias thula Hovanitz and two Bang-Haas Colias
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cotypes. Our gratitude to Dr. Hovanitz' widow, Barbara, for this generous gift is here acknowledged.
Bernard H. (Bernie) Weber was an avid collector who also carried on an ambitious exchange program with other lepidopterists, chiefly throughout the United States and Canada. His collection is composed of 43,988 specimens, more than 90% of which are Nearctic and represent the majority of the presently recognized taxa of the region. Many so-called "rare" butterflies (such as Speyeria egleis tehachapina J. A. Comstock) are included in the collection in sizable series. California and West Coast butterflies are especially well represented, but there are good series from elsewhere as well; no type specimens are included. This collection came to the Museum through the kindness and foresight of Mr. Weber's widow, Virginia.
All of these collections have been or are being incorporated into the main collection of the Allyn Museum of Entomology where they will be available to researchers in the coming years. Suffice it to say that the staff of the Museum is grateful for the generosity (that human attribute that makes growth of museum collections possible) and far-sightedness of the donors in making these collections again available to Science.
Lee D. Miller, Curator, Allyn Museum of Entomology, Florida State Museum, 3701 Bay Shore Road, Sarasota, Florida 33580.
Journal of the Lepidopterists Society 37(4), 1983, 318
AN OLD FIRST UNITED STATES RECORD FINALLY PUBLISHED: PAPILIO VICTORINUS (PAPILIONIDAE) IN LAREDO, TEXAS
On 17 August 1974 I collected a male Papilio victorinus Dbldy. in Laredo, Webb County, Texas. The relatively fresh specimen was collected in a large planted flower bed, which included a number of marigolds on the eastern edge of the city.
I first mentioned this capture in the May/June 1978 issue of the "News of the Lepidopterists' Society." At that time I was inquiring as to whether anyone else had collected this particular species in the U.S. I did not receive any correspondence as to such captures; subsequently, the publication of the 1981, Catalogue/Checklist of the Butterflies of America North of Mexico by Miller & Brown, with the omission of P. victorinus, reconfirmed my belief that this was indeed a first U.S. record.
Tyler (1975, The Swallowtail Butterflies of North America, Nature Graph Publishers, Inc., Healdsburg, California, p. 128) gives the range of this species as "Temperate and tropical regions of E. Mexico as far north as Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas." Five additional specimens were collected during a short period in August 1974 on the Plaza Zaragosa in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico. I had expressed the belief that P. victorinus was perhaps extending its range northward; however, more recent trips to northern Mexico have failed to turn up the species in any significant numbers. It appears that 1974 was just a good year for it. The fact that it can be found occasionally in good numbers in Monterrey, which is just south of the latitude of Brownsville, Texas, is an indication that collectors in southern Texas should watch for it.
The specimen is presently in my collection at 135 N. Missouri St., Liberty, Missouri 64068.
James K. Adams, Dept. of Entomology, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas 66045.