INSECTS AT GREAT ELEVATIONS. 87 



tance from the coast, large-mnf^ed LepidoiMra (butter- 

 flies) fall on the deck of the ship. 



Equally striking is the presence of winged insects at 

 very lofty elevations. Saussure found butterflies at the 

 summit of Mont Blanc, and Ramond observed them in 

 the solitudes around that of Mont Perdu. Captain 

 Fremont saw honey-bees at the top of the loftiest jDeak 

 of the Rocky Mountains in North America, the height of 

 which is 13,568 feet. Dr Hooker, in the Himalaya range, 

 found insects plentiful at 17,000 feet; butterflies of the 

 genera Colias, Hipparchia, Melitcea, and Polyommatus, 

 besides beetles, and great flies. Humboldt saw butterflies 

 among perpetual snow at yet loftier elevations in the 

 Andes of Peru, but conjectured that they had been 

 carried thither involuntarily by ascending currents of air. 

 And the same great philosopher, when ascending Chim- 

 borazo, in June 1802, with Bonpland and Montufar, found 

 winged flies (JDiptera) buzzing around him at the height 

 of 18,225 feet ; while a little below this elevation Bon- 

 pland saw yellow butterflies flying over the ground. 



I shall close this category with two examples of animal 

 life in unwonted situations, less scientifically curious it 

 may be than those already adduced, but more amusing. 

 That fishes should fly in the air is strange enough, but we 

 should scarcely expect that they would verify their gene- 

 ric name * by going to bed out of water. Yet Kotzebue 

 was favoured with such an unexpected bedfellow : — 



" The nights being w^arm," observes the voyager, '' we 



* Exocaetus, the name of the flying-fish, from c^o), out, and <oira'a), 

 to sleep. The Greeks fancied that the fish left the water to sleep. 



