THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 377 



CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE ENTOMOLOGY OF THE 

 SELKIRK MOUNTAINS OF BRITISH COLUMBIA.— L 



INTRODUCTORY. 



BY J. CHESTER BRADLEY, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, CAL. 



In company with a party of botanists and others, the writer spent the 

 summer of 1905 in the Selkirk Mountains of British Columbia, much of the 

 time in scientifically unexplored parts of that beautiful range. The Selkirks 

 occupy the major part of the Kootenay district of south-eastern British 

 Columbia. It will be seen by reference to a map that they are bounded 

 on practically all sides by the Columbia and Kootenay Rivers and the 

 long and narrow Kootenay Lake. They form, especially in the northern 

 part, an exceedingly rugged region of lofty peaks and lidges, cut by deep, 

 densely-wooded valleys. The vegetation is said to be much denser than in 

 the Rockies of corresponding latitude, and differs somewhat from it in the 

 nature of its trees, etc. It certainly is almost impenetrable in many places, 

 and to take a pack animal where there is no cut trail is out of the 

 question. 



The region is divided by the Canadian Pacific Railway into a 

 northern and southern district, more or less differentiated in natural as 

 well as other features. The southern part is a mining country, and in 

 some of the valleys are occasional mining settlements, and even railroads 

 and small towns. It contains a few large lakes, on one of the most 

 beautiful of which is situated the little town ofKaslo, where Dr. Dyar and 

 Messrs. Currie and Caudell made the headquarters of their expedition of 

 the previous season, and where Mr. Cockle, an enthusiastic entomol- 

 ogist, has accumulated an extensive cabinet of local insects. Some 

 distance north of this, on the shore of Howser Lake, our party spent two 

 weeks, and considerable collecting was had. A little marl bog on the 

 opposite shore furnished collecting grounds of a type not elsewhere met 

 with. 



The northern district is not penetrated more than a mile or two from 

 the railroad by any evidence of civilization, excepting three or four small 

 mining camps and the occasional hut of a trapper. Even the latter is 

 very, very scarce. Although scientists have sometimes penetrated into 

 the Rockies north of the railroad, they have not, so far as I am aware, 

 entered here. Yet the region is attractive in the highest degree. The 



November, 1906 



