270 THK KNTOMOLOGIST's REfOUIt. 



while on the slopes iuiinediately above were a good uumbei' of the fonuer, 

 the remarkable fact heini^ the reversal of the two species with regard 

 to altitude ; among the few taken were, of course, no hybrids. Higher 

 up, long sweeps of flowery Alp stretch from the rocky precipices aloft 

 to the valley below, forming perfect collecting ground in ordinary 

 seasons ; the only insects which had been able to survive the continual 

 rains of the preceding weeks were a few Albidina p/ieretes, A i tela 

 eninedon, F.rcbid sti/i/nr, and an odd Cu/iulo uiininia, with one Melitaea 

 djntliia (acri|)p]e), Hying just below the Club Hut. Mr. Muschamp, 

 who knows these valleys intiniatel3% was astounded at the poverty of 

 insect life, but did his best (though ineffectually) to console us with 

 accounts of what slioidd be there and in what numbers they oiuj/it to 

 be. We reached the Club Hut without rain, but during the night it 

 poured in a uioat business-like way, and the morning broke showing the 

 valley beneath us full of mist. Collecting being out of the question, 

 we clambered over the rocks above the Club Hut and on to the glacier, 

 to find the crevasses all covered up with fresh snow, through which we 

 tradged for a good distance, examining hundreds of lace-winged flies, 

 beetles of several species, cranefiies, and other Diptera resembling 

 Louseflies, all of which lay numbed and frozen either on the surface of 

 the snow or in slight indentations, these no doubt caused by the ab- 

 sorption and radiation of heat by the insects owing to their darker 

 coloration. On the slopes above the Club Hut, where the sun shone 

 for a short time, were a few Melitaea ci/nthia, the ? s evidently just 

 out, and sunning themselves ; also one or two h'lebia Ictji/toiia, chipped 

 by the hail. Everything being so hopeless, we descended in the after- 

 noon through the mists to the Klonthal Hotel, where we passed the 

 next few days of fine weather, hoping that the insects would be emerg- 

 ing to enjoy it too. 



Our next visit to the Club Hut was on August 4th, the weather 

 during the morning being delightful. In the lower wooded slopes of 

 the Rossmatterthal Krehia Ivjea and E. iiianto were flying fairly plenti- 

 fully, P. apollo was in numbers as before above Werben ; solitary 

 specimens of Arj/i/nnis at/laia, Urenthis aiiiat/Liisia, B. jialca, C'l/anirif: 

 semiargns, with a J Albulina jdieretea in shreds, were the only butter- 

 flies on the splendid ground between Werben and the Club Hut. A 

 subtle change in the weather heralded a heavy hailstorm, which we 

 only just escaped by scrambling up to the Hut in time, and rain con- 

 tinued all night, as on our last visit. The next two days were spent 

 in the Club Hut, waiting for the rain to stop. Mr. Muschamp has 

 hinted at some of the delights of a stay here, but a description of our 

 attempts to pass the time during the unceasing rain and hail of these 

 two days, not above the clouds, but among them, the Hut supplying 

 nothing in the nature of literature or of writing materials, would make 

 entertaining reading. We managed to get down to the Hotel Klonthal 

 again on the afternoon of the 6th, and then followed a period of rain 

 lasting till the 15th, during which the hotel gradually emptied, Mr. 

 Page and myself being the only two left to listen to the landlord's 

 wailings. Telephonic communication with Stilfa elicited the fact that 

 the weather was as bad all over Switzerland, and that the season was 

 the worst for the last 20 years, worse even than in 1912 ; people were 

 all coming down from the high Alps and the hotels in the plains were 



