A FOURTH SEASON AMONG SWISS BUTTERFLIES. 



121 



Satj/nis Htatilinua had appeared but not in numbers as yet. On the 21st 

 and subsequent days I found I jeucophasia sinapis vars. rnj.siiiii and 

 diniensis, common, and Sati/rns phacdra very abundant at Aigle, and on 

 this date saw and very narrowly missed Pajiilio machaon var. aurantiaca, 

 which Mr. Fison has taken in this neighbourhood more than once ; 

 and at the same spot on the 23rd I took another C. var. hdlce, which, 

 however, having one wing rather badly torn I allowed to escape. 

 Within the next ten days I took three expeditions to Martigny in search 

 of N. statilinHs for Mr. Lowe, and also of Melitaea bcrisalcnsis of which 

 I took two or three specimens each time. N. ^tatiliiiKu was abundant, 

 but ? s very scarce. On one of these occasions Ch. Favre invited me 

 to come and hunt among his duplicates (" chasser parmi mes doublettes 

 were his words) and I thus obtained a couple of I'arari/e Jdcra and one 

 specimen of Krebia chriMi, as well as other things of which I was 

 short. On September 6th we returned to Veytaux, and on the follow- 

 ing day went up the Eochers de Naye where I took several Krebia 

 pnmoc vsLV. pitlio, which differed somewhat from the Simplon specimens, 

 having generally no spots on the deep mahogany blotch on the fore- 

 wings of the underside. This was, properly speaking, the end of my 

 entomological season ; but one day in October Chanoine Favre and I 

 met at Mr. Fison's for a long day to examine his collection minutely, 

 and came across many specimens of interest, including several unusual 

 aberrations. I append a list of my new captures this year, as I did 

 for my three former seasons, but naturally such lists must become 

 "smaller by degrees and beautifully less." Lencophada ainapis ab. 

 dminms, Chri/sojdtanus dorilia var. brnnnea, Nomiades cyllarui^ var. 

 blachien, N. soiiian/us var. inontaiia, L'upido alsiis var. al.soides, 

 Pnlyommatua optiletc var. ci/payiii>n(s, An/ijnyiin daphne, Krebia tjindarnt 

 var. drontus, K. manto and var. caecilia,K. >iti/;/)U' ( jdrenej, &nd Kpim'phele 

 tit/mniis, besides several species presented to me. This year was also the 

 first time that I had personally met with l'(d.!/(iii})iiatiis orion and L)/caena 

 amanda. Two other points I must just mention. I have spoken in a 

 previous paper of the numbers of Krebia aetlnoim at Aigle. I find on 

 comparison with specimens taken this year at Miirren that almost all the 

 Aigle specimens are of the form leiicatamia. The other and much more 

 important point is that Coenonumpha satyriun, which in my last year's 

 papers I called a variety of C. arcania (a form of nomenclature altered 

 presumably by the Editor), was very abundant this year at 

 Miirren, and from the number of specimens I was able to examine 

 there, I am pretty well convinced that it is not a distinct species, almost 

 every characteristic of the type being more or less reproduced, some in 

 one example some in another, so that it approximates more closely to 

 the type than the var. danriniana, which has, I believe, never been 

 considered a separate species. 



I have been asked several times this year to prepare a small hand- 

 book of the Swiss butterflies, there being nothing later than 1880 ; I 

 shall be most happy to make the attempt, but my power of doing so 

 must depend very largely on the extent to which collectors are willing 

 to put their experience at my disposal. May I be allowed to take 

 this opportunity of begging for the exact localities and dates of the 

 capture of butterflies in Switzerland, especially the rarer and more 

 local species, addressed to me at the Pension Masson, Veytaux, 

 Switzerland ? 



