416 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1921. 



tions, the most important of which are Longmire's Springs and 

 Paradise Park, at both of which food supplies can be purchased 

 from the stores. Elaborate hotels and less pretentious tent houses 

 are also maintained at these two stations for the convenience of 

 the unencumbered traveler. 



Between the park entrance and Longmire the road winds through 

 a dense forest of huge evergreen trees, the Douglas firs rivaling the 

 giant trees of California in height. This forest is luxuriantly 

 carpeted with shrubbery so as to be almost impenetrable at times. 

 Large-leaved spiny devil's clubs, vine maples, alders, salmon berries, 

 and spii'Eeas help fill in the underbrush. Insect collecting in this 

 darkened zone of from 2,000 to 3,000 feet elevation is mainly char- 

 acterized, as elsewhere in the forests flanking the Cascade Mountains, 

 by the abundance of small ftying forms in early summer and the 

 paucity of specimens after midsummer. 



Above Longmire in general the forest opens, the trees are smaller, 

 and different species enter to take the place of the larger trees found 

 mainly below. The underbrush is less dense, mainly cricaceous, and 

 in the burns along the ridges consists largely of fircweed and huckle- 

 berry. In the damper stretches microdiptera abound as in the lower 

 woods. A chance dropping of bear dung entices swarms of co- 

 prophilous borborids. Tiny Rhamphomyias weave their intermin- 

 able dance over the pools and rills, the silvery females hovering 

 close to the surface of the water, the more venturesome black males 

 going forth to capture the midges used as a mating offering. Over 

 the purple flowers of the pentstemons a cloud of midget Anthalias 

 zigzag up and down. Mosquitoes are a plague in the early summer. 

 Bloodsucking Symphoromyias, called " the bad biter,'' follow the 

 traveler and vie with the smaller buffalo-gnats, which have emerged 

 from the mountain streams, in being a torment. 



In the open there is less dearth of flowers and the insect fauna 

 correspondingly changes. Syrphus flies, bumblebees, wasps, butter- 

 flies, and longhorn beetles are more abundant, but to the collector 

 who is familiar with forest insects, so far there is nothing 

 distinctive of the greatest mountain. At an elevation of about 5,000 

 feet, reached all the way by a road so evenly graded that auto- 

 mobiles ascend on high gear, suddenly a vista of an alpine flower 

 park opens beyond a clump of scrubby trees. The effect of the 

 first view is startling. In profusion of species, in infinite beauty of 

 color, in the expanse of natural beds of flowers, the gardens of 

 Rainier are wonderful beyond description. The verdict of moun- 

 taineers is that they surpass those of any other alpine region of the 

 world. Reds, blues, yellows, purples, and white are commingled 

 in luxuriant growth. It seems a sacrilege to wade knee-deep through 



