172 THE entomologist's record. 



glorious fulness of coloui', no blending of hues more delightful than 

 the orange and purple masses, with the deep emerald setting of the 

 bushes behind. But my companion is out of sight, so I saunter on ; 

 soon a clover field attracts my attention. Here are most of the 

 butterflies again, with Pyrameis rardui, Pierts daplidice, and the great 

 nipparchia briseis in addition, but we have to go on, and soon we reach 

 another road. Here the blackberries are in sucli profusion, and the 

 sun is so hot, that my heart goes out to the luscious fruit, and my hands 

 follow my heart. Tlien we climb over the hedge, and, passing through 

 a little coppice, find ourselves in a clover field. With the increase of 

 heat comes increased insect life. Butterflies simply swarm here. 

 Melitaea cinxin, M. athalia and M. dia are in considerable abundance 

 as well as the larger beauties, Argynnis niohe and A. aglaia. The famous 

 seven-leagued boots would be utterly inefticacious for the capture of C. 

 hyale or C. edusa here, even were one so disposed. But one is hardly 

 so disclosed in the now broiling sun, and we slowly cross the field, and 

 run our eye repeatedly over the surrounding country, then back to the 

 butterfly population around us. Across the field we skirt the edge of a 

 wood, with acres upon acres of undergrowth composed almost entirely 

 of box, in which Minoa euphorhinta abounds ; whilst presently from 

 the ridge of the hill we look down upon a most charming picture. 



Woodland and iields roll down to the shores of Lake Bourget, which, 

 marvellous in colour, lies like a solid mirror of exipiisite beauty far 

 below. Vineyard after vineyard, with their fruit })urpling in the sun ; 

 fields of maize with their heavy cobs, from which the purple-red stigmas 

 hang pendent in rich beauty, run down to that charming sheet of 

 smoothest blue which extends for miles without a break down the 

 valley. On the other side, as on this, steep mountains form its back- 

 ground, the higher ones to the south here and there glistening with 

 snow, or even with a miniature glacier ne've. But the colour of that 

 beautiful lake ! Is it blue, is it green — that deep intense colour that 

 makes the water so perfect a picture of embodied loveliness ? It's 

 blue ! No, it's green I we exclaim in tones almost without a break, and 

 the mind changes its opinion each time we gaze afresh on it ; nay, it 

 changes even while we gaze. Why is that charming colour rarely 

 seen elsewhere than among the Swiss lakes? Is it due to the solid 

 matter which the glacial streams bring down in millions of tons in 

 their headlong rapid course ? Maybe, for if from a glacier stream 

 you take a glass of water and hold it up in the sunlight, the tiny 

 particles of mica which fill it up and permeate it sparkle with 

 resplendent beautv ; but so tiny are they, so incomprehensibly light, 

 that not a single atom seems to fall to the bottom as sediment, even 

 after hours and hours of repose. Maybe there are millions of such 

 particles here, and their action on the light may have something to do 

 with it. Whether this be so I trow not, but I do know that the colour 

 of these lakes is one of the most charming of Nature's many charming 

 beauties with which she everywhere surrounds us. 



Here, looking on the lovely lake, we will end our morning walk. 

 We did, of course, find our way back to tlie station, and were in Aix 

 soon after noon, but tlie charming picture lay upjiermost in our minds, 

 and even the enchanting A. latona, the attractive H. briseis, 

 the Lu-ge purple-black S. dry as and doughty C edusa fail to remove, even 

 for a mouient, the delightful and entrancing picture which the lake has 

 just revealed to us. 



