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JOURNAL OF VARIATION. 



No. 3. Vol. VI. February 15th, 1895. 



K ]VIopriiiig at Boupg ^t. JVIaurice. 



By J. VV. TUXr, F.E.S. 



The silvery sweetness of the Sabbath bells is borne on the still air 

 into the little Swiss village of Bourg St. Maurice, through whose narrow 

 streets the jingle, jingle of the mule bells passes, beyond the houses, 

 into the fields just beyond. A typical Swiss village, I have called it 

 little, although it is large compared with many of the Swiss villages 

 that dot the slopes of the Isere Valley, in which Bourg St. Maurice 

 stands. Swiss villages I have termed them, for are not all these charm- 

 ing little places on the Alps essentially Swiss, whether they are in 

 Savoy (and thus belong politically to France), in Piedmont (and thus 

 bc'hmg to Italy) or in Switzerland itself. It is one of the last three daj^s 

 of July. A large white cloud floats along, changing its fantastic shape 

 as it sails across the deep blue sa})})hire sk}^ but the mountains around 

 are free from cloud, and show no signs of any possible atmosplieric 

 disturbance for some time to come. 



The village is situated at no great distance from the entrance to the 

 Little St. Bernard Pass, on the French side of the frontier. Along the 

 road which leads towards this we go for a few hundred yards, the 

 emerald green of the fields showing, by the luxuriance of the crops, 

 how carefully they have been irrigated. A few butterflies only are ob- 

 served near the village — Pieris rapae, Epinephele ianiva, Coenoni/mpha 

 pdiaphilns, with here and there, scudding along at a tremendous pace, 

 Colias edusa and C. hyale. These of course we observe from the 

 road, but presently a White l)utterfly, of pronounced habit and flight, 

 appears, and settling on a flower by the wayside, shows us the first 

 Pieris daplidice. A glorious insect (evidently just emerged from the 

 pupa) its marbled gi'een underside discloses at once its identity, whilst 

 its abundant dark spotting on the up])er side bespeaks it a female. This 

 is but the advance guard, for in a meadow to the left, where a row of 

 trees makes a grateful shade, the delicate and slender lady of the woods, 

 — the Wood- white butterfly (Lcncophasid sinapis) — flutters so gently, 

 that it looks the embodiment of delicious coolness. We reach a flower- 

 covered bank only some ten or twelve feet in height, on which the rays 

 of the sun, with their ever-increasing heat, beat down pitilessly. It 

 is just such a flower-bank as one might meet in hundreds of byways 

 in Britain ; but here, butterflies and moths innumerabli' haunt the 



