140 thp: buttp:rflies of new England. 



about two degrees of latitude by a little more than a degree of longitude ; 

 but in every instance it has been found at a height of at least 12,000 feet. 

 Thus to pass from north southward, I have taken it at Argentine Pass 

 (13,000') and on Mt. Lincoln (12-13,000'), Mr. Mead near Twin Lakes 

 on a mountain slope (13,000'), Dr. Packard and Prof. F. H. Snow on 

 Pike's Peak (13-14,000'), and fiir to the south I found it on Sierra Blanca 

 (14,000'). It has also been taken on Bullion Mt., wherever that may be, 

 by Mr. David Bruce. As the height of the timber line in that region is 

 about 10,000', the elevation at which the Colorado butterflies are found 

 corresponds to the 1500'-20OO' above the forest line at which they appear 

 at the White Mountains. 



Dr. Harris' assertion that "it has also been seen on the Monadnoc 

 Mountain [in southern New Hampshire] and will probably be discovered 

 on the tops of the high mountains in our own State" is therefore wdiolly 

 erroneous. I have ascended Grey lock, the highest mountain in Massa- 

 chusetts, more than twenty times, and at all seasons of the year and 

 certainly could not have foiled to see this butterfly did it occur there. 

 Since Monadnock is a naked peak (though not rising above the normal 

 forest line) it wovdd certainly be a more probable habitat for the insect, 

 but the limitation of its distribution in the White ^Mountains wholly forbids 

 the possibility of its presence on an isolated mountain to the south, which 

 only rises to the height of 3,700 feet. 



Haunts. The butterfly is found most abundantly from about one- 

 (£uarter to three-quarters of a mile from the summit of Mt. Washington, 

 or at an elevation of from about 5,600 to 0,200 feet above the sea. It often 

 alights on the flowers of Silene acaulis Linn., as well as upon some of the 

 Ericaceae, particularly on a species of Vaccinium, and is also fond of the 

 flowers of Arenaria groenlandica : but the best collecting places are the sedgy 

 plateaus of the northeastern and southern sides of the mountain, where the 

 aurelian will also obtain a good footing — a matter of no small importance 

 on such a collecting ground. One favorite spot I have named Semidea 

 Plateau ; the carriage road crosses it just below the 7th mile-post. I have 

 never found the butterfly at the head of any of the deep ravines. 



There are other species of Oeneis confined to mountain regions and 

 Meyer-Diir states of O. aello, the species occurring in the European 

 Alps, that it inhabits the calcareous and central mountains ; not the highest 

 chains, as has been generally supposed, but rather the middle regions, 

 from four to six thousand feet above the sea. He also makes the remark- 

 able assertion that the butterfly appears — at least in Switzerland — only on 

 alternate years ; namely, those with even numbers. Professor Frey thinks 

 this to be true only for special localities, but that every year it may be 

 found in some of them ; and Speyer also says that, according to Trapp, it 

 appears every year, but in some years more abundantly than in others. 



