cated Korak or Innuit root which is used with little or no inflection, while in the original tongues reduplication is extremely rare and the roots are always inflected. Many of these words have an abstract meaning which does not exist in the native dialects, as for instance" kau-kau," food. In the dialect of Chau-chan and Innuit alike, there is no abstract word for food known, but there are special names for each kind of food, which are always used in speaking among the speaker's own people. This jargon was in use, I have reason to believe, in some shape between the Innuit and Tsau-yu, long before the advent of the whites, but when traders came it was soon amplified by new words for things previously unknown, almost always modified from their original pronunciation by the unaccustomed native tongues (as 'Myr-kan for American; chopak for sabak; tāwā'ka for tobacco, etc).

The confusion can only be cleared up by trained linguists. Ordinary explorers cannot be expected to be qualified for the task. The vocabularies obtained by them will almost certainly be infected by jargon, if indeed not wholly composed of it. Even with the great care doubtless exercised by Lieut. Nordqvist and his companions, I should feel little hesitation in predicting that their vocabularies will be found to contain a certain admixture of Eskimo words, which could be picked out by an expert.

Now if this be the case (and we shall doubtless learn in good time about it), since the mode of life, the general features of physique and the jargon used by both races differ but very little, according to the reports from the Vega and the experience of others, how can we say dogmatically that the Innuit are not at any time to be found on the Arctic Siberian coast, until the several villages and their inhabitants have been examined in greater detail than has yet been possible?

I will conclude by noting that the Innuit of the American and Asiatic shores of Behring strait are not on good terms with each other. They are not actually at war, as in the time of their discovery by Popoff and Deshneff, but they cherish a mutual contempt. The "Mātsin'kā men" of Asia despise the "Nakü'ruk men" of America. The inhabitants of the Diomedes, who do most of the intertrading, warned us, in 1880, against the "bad men" of East cape. The Plover bay natives (Yuit) were outspoken in their contempt for the American Innuit.

The long journeys from Asia to America formerly performed

by the natives, are now unnecessary on account of the visits of traders to both shores, and are seldom or never undertaken. The Diomede people, however, visit both shores and carry liquor from Asia to America. The increasing scarcity of food is impelling a southward migration as previously mentioned, and it may not be many years before the native Eskimo population of Asia may be located where Lieut. Nordqvist at present has somewhat prematurely placed them, namely, to the south and west of Cape Chukotsky.

:0:

THE LENGTH OF LIFE OF BUTTERFLIES.1

BY W. H. EDWARDS.

SOME inquiries on the subject led me to investigate the mat

ter, and to refer to my note books, in which are recorded everything that has come under my observation relating to butterflies for the past fifteen years.

Boisduval, and Kirby, and Spence allege that the life of the summer butterflies is brief, the male expiring soon after copulation, the female after oviposition. On the other hand, Mr. Scudder has spoken of butterflies living two to three months. Mr. Edwards expressed the opinion as to the hibernating butterflies, that they lived from about the 1st of September to the end of the following May, or eight to nine months at the outside. Whereas Mr. Scudder asserts that D. archippus lives from a year to fifteen or sixteen months.

Observations show that one brood follows another in rapid succession in many species at the South, a month sufficing for the complete duration of the generation. As the emergence of individuals from the chrysalis is not all at once, but is continued through several days or weeks, it follows that the life of any individual butterfly must be much less than the duration of its generation; certainly not over one-half to two-thirds that of the generation. In the case of polymorphic species like Papilio ajax, it is not difficult to fix the duration with some definiteness. Mr. Edwards gave from his note books dates of the first and last appearance at Coalburgh, W. Va., of the form Ajax walshi and of the form

1 Abstract of a paper read at the Cincinnati Meeting of the American Association for Advancement of Science.

Ajax telamonides, and showed that an individual life could hardly be more than two to three weeks. It was stated that not only in this species but in most or all which had come under observation, it is the old males which mate with the young female as soon, or nearly as soon, as she emerges from the chrysalis. These old males are on the watch, flying about everywhere, and seize the young female, often before her wings are dry, and hence before the young male, if emerging at the same time with the female, would be strong enough to take part in the copulation. Consequently it happens that many of the males are unable to find mates, and these males are the longest lived. The last butterflies of the generation are often seen to be old males, who probably have never mated.

Similar conclusions as to the duration of life were drawn from observations on the polymorphic species, Lycana pseudargiolus of which L. viclacea is the early form.

For an example of the hibernating species, the history of D. archippus was detailed. It is three or four brooded in West Virginia; the old females die in May after laying their eggs. These eggs produce the first generation of butterflies of the year, and the females of this lay eggs which produce the second generation, and so on to the end. The eggs are always laid by females plainly not long from the chrysalis. We have carefully watched this species all through the year 1878, and had given the results as briefly stated here in Psyche, Dec., 1878. This was because Mr. Scudder, in Psyche, July, 1875, had represented Archippus as having habits unlike any other butterfly, in that it was singlebrooded over North America, and not double brooded; that it left its winter quarters late and continued on the wing the rest of the season, laying eggs all the time, so that the caterpillars to be found all along through the season were produced by its eggs, instead of coming from the eggs of young females. The young females in fact could not lay until they had passed hibernation. It will be seen that such behavior involves a radical change of habits of the race, wherein this butterfly, laying eggs at intervals for months, approaches the mammals.

Mr. Scudder recently repeats this story in his "Butterflies," 1881, without note or comment or any additional data, or any verification at all, and hence Mr. Edward's paper.

NOTES ON THE MIGRATIONS OF BIRDS.

BY H. D. MINOT.

L

ITCHFIELD is in the highland of Western Connecticut, from nine hundred to twelve hundred feet above the sea, somewhat sparsely wooded, though well watered by southerly streams, running either into the Naugatuck valley or into the system of Bantam lake (the largest body of fresh water in Connecticut, with an area of about twelve hundred acres). My observations there extended from October, 1880, to May, 1881, inclusive of both months, and suggested to me, concerning:1

(1) Pioneer migrants: that the single temporary forerunners of a species, so often observed among early non-gregarious migrants before the arrival of their fellows in numbers, may serve more than a purely individual purpose. A single record will illustrate: April 1st I observed by a particular bridge the first pewee, dejected, silent or petulant, and hurried, soon flying out of sight southward; for a week no pewees were to be seen or heard there or anywhere about; April 8th was pewee-day, bringing these birds in numbers, and at the bridge appeared a triumphant pewee with his mate.

(2) Local differences of time.-Migrant cat-birds appeared in outlying swamps a week or more before the resident cat-birds returned to their village home; and king-birds appeared down

Before remarking on migrations here, I append the following dates of arrival : March 12, blue birds (in numbers); 15, song sparrow, snow bird, fox sparrow, redwinged blackbird and rusty grakle; 25, meadow lark; April 1, the first pewee; 3, horned lirks; 9, downy woodpecker; 20, white-breasted swallow, Savannah sparrow, bay-winged sparrow, cow bird and kingfisher; 22, hermit thrush; 23, redpoll warbler, martius, swamp, field and chipping sparrows, yellow-bellied woodpecker (among hemlocks) and golden-crowned kinglet (absent latterly in winter); 24, ruby-crowned kinglet (singing), yellow-rumped warbler, barn swallow, solitary vireo, and purple finch, and goldfinch (after a long absence); 28, brown thrush, creeping warbler (Mniotilta), white-throated sparrow (earlier?) and towhee; May 1, orchard flycatcher (Empidonax minimus-the first appeared April 27); 3, Swainson's thrush (a pair in a pasture (!) by a rill), cat-bird, oven-bird, yellow warbler, and king-bird; 5, house wren; 6, Wilson's thrush and redstart; 7, warbling vireo; 8, chestnut-sided warbler, Maryland yellow-throat, Baltimore oriole (abundant next morning), "night hawk" (in the village) and wood thrush (probably); 9, Nashville warbler, "blue yellow-back," etc., red-eyed vireo, rose-breasted grosbeak, bobolir.k and Traill's flycatcher; 10, wood pewee and whippoorwill; 12, cedar-birds; 13, yellow-throated vireo and black-and-yellow warbler (or earlier); 14, scarlet tanager; 15, black-billed cuckoo, and so on. Blue birds had eggs in the last week of April; robins and pewees began to lay about May 1st.

by the lake, three miles off, several days before advancing to the outskirts of the much higher village. The most favorable haunts are the first revisited. Local differences of season, too, are very considerable April 30, a visit to Bethlehem, nine miles southward, showed a week's advance.

(3) The great influence of season and the comparatively little influence of temporary weather (except on water fowl).-Crows moving southward in large bodies in the latter part of October, predicted to me a severe winter. It proved one of extraordinary and almost uninterrupted severity, without any midwinter thaw. In the first week of March these crows returned (three hundred debating one afternoon whether to roost in Litchfield woods or to pass on), our first spring weather forthwith followed, and real winter did not reappear. Snow-birds (Junco hyemalis) were absent all winter, following southward the unusually extended and steady line of frost and snow; and nuthatches and most of their kindred were absent during the latter or stormy part, marked especially by ice-storms. On the other hand, some warblers, after a month of bright, lovely weather, waited to appear in the face of the cold, blustering, lasting northeaster that set in May 16. In spring, moonlight is taken advantage of by birds like water-fowl, that make long voyages in long flights; but it affects little our insessorial birds, who, however much they may profit by the harvest moon in autumn, in spring are more strongly impelled to migrate, and reappear pretty regularly, independently of the lunar calendar. For instance, at home I have noted the arrival of a particular pair of Wilson's thrushes year after year, between the 5th and the roth of May, often coming apparently in the night, however young or old the moon might be. No doubt, however, as I have even detected sometimes, migrants that seem to have come in the night, often arrive in the evening, simply traveling till a late hour of the day before resting, and the next morning may linger for refreshment before resuming their journey. In building, on the contrary, activity is in the morning.

(4) The uncertain order of species.-In spite of pretty regular habits of migration among the later comers, accidental circumstances produce such variations that there is no certain order or procedure among the different kinds, even near relations. Whether the chipping or the field sparrow (Spizellas) will appear first in a given locality where both are common, who can safely predict?