ABOVE LAKE BOITRGET. 171 



for its protection. Beautiful aiifl marvollonsly worker! are the 

 intricacies of tliese lines, wliicli combine to form so strong a means of 

 protection. Here is a male, with the ])ale transverse hand nuxch 

 restricted, and witli the ordinarily pallid portion very strongly suffused 

 with a deep fuscous hue ; Esper figures an abenvation under the 

 name of pirata, which is described by Staudinger as being " fasciis 

 infuscatis," this author apparently supjjosing it to be only a feminine 

 aberration, but our specimen, being a male, jjroves that this is not so. 

 One female is of a paler ground tint, and there is some variation in the 

 number of round l)lack spots which are found in the sections into 

 which the darker nervures divide the white transverse band. Six of 

 these sections form the Ijand, and a small black spot exists in the first 

 and fourth sections. Some have a third spot developed in the third 

 section, and this varies much in size. Other insects fly wildly in the 

 hot sun, and presently we turn up again by a tangled path and cross a 

 clearing on the outskirts of the wood. In a corner the charming 

 Lycaena aryiades, with its slender tails, is found. One is puzzled that 

 this species should ever have been taken in England, for the haunts it 

 loves here are brilliantly sunny, and scarcely know Avhat winter 

 means. Colias ediisa is seen drying its wings, whilst Colias hyaJe 

 careers madly by. Gone2')teryx rhamni, like a big, live yellow leaf, 

 flutters and hangs about most charmingly, and then we bear to the 

 right a little and enter a sloping field, almost covered with heather and 

 wild thyme, which leads into the upper part of the wood. Aspilates 

 (jilvarla, Seh'dusema plumarid, Miiimeseoptilus 2)higiod(icfyhis, Aridalia 

 ornata, Noiuophila noctnella (hybridal in), Botyn fernu/ah'K, Pliisid r/anima, 

 Entheiitonia russnia, Setina irroreUa (of quite a British t^q^e) and Sfrcnia 

 cJath-dta fly up at almost every step, wliilst Lycaeim astrarche, L. 

 hcllaryns and L. corydoa flit from flower to flower. Plnsid qamma is 

 pale in colour, and much like the immigrants which reach Britain so 

 frequently in late spring or early summer, whilst N. noctaella and B. 

 fernujalis, also reported to have decided migratory tendencies and 

 habits, differ in no wise from British specimens. We pass through the 

 wood and soon emerge at its upper edge, on the border of a lucerne 

 field alive with insects. Pieris rapae is the chief intruder perhaps, 

 then Lycaeua corydon, but Colias ednsa is there too, with Pieris napi, 

 and a few Fritillaries besides. But if the lucerne field is alive, what is 

 to be said of the strip of flowery waste on which we suddenly come, 

 and which, some ten to thirty feet in width, extends to the stubble of 

 the next field ? Here the flowers are literally alive, and one has only 

 time to determine what the species are. Interesting bej'ond all, 

 perhaps, are the comparatively inconspicuous Neiaeobias Incina, specimens 

 of the second brood flitting gaily with Lycaena icarus. Anjynnis latona, 

 and the Coliadae, which abound here, whilst Acidalia ochrata also 

 gets up from the hei'bage. In a nook near by, is taken the only 

 specimen we see of Erehia aethiops, a large richly-coloured male, just 

 out of chrysalis, and displaying rainbow-tinted hues as the sunlight 

 glints on the dark scales of its upper wings. But beautiful as are the 

 butterflies here, they bear no comparison with the charming brilliancy 

 of the Melampyrum. With its orange and purple bracts, it 

 forms one vast vista of fairy loveliness in the woods, one heaped-up 

 bank of exrpiisite beauty by the side of the path. No cold aesthetic 

 loveliness has nature here, but full radiant beauty of the richest and 

 most delightful hues. Nothing can be more charming than this 



