GI.ACIAL REMINDERS. 591 



such delicate organisms as butterflies can maintain themselves in such a 

 bleak and inhospitable region as the sunnnit of the White Mountains, 

 where a Greenlander would find it impossiljle to live in comfort, inasmuch 

 as he would be exposed not merely to the cold to which he is no stranger, 

 but to the fiercest and most biting winds, with an amount of humidity 

 accompanying them which would seem to be almost fatal to existence. In 

 the case of our two butterflies it is tolerably certain that both of them 

 pass the winter in the caterpillar stage, concealed in crevices of rocks 

 beneath the mantle of snow, so that they are free from the sweeping wind, 

 and have nothing but the rigors of the extremely long and cold winter to 

 encounter. For protection during the brief existence of the buttei'fly life 

 itself, there is a very plain provision on the ])art of nature in the protec- 

 tive colors of the wings. Especially is this the case with the Oeneis 

 which, cm alighting (which it ordinarily does on the bare gray rocks), 

 invariably closes it wings back to back and settles upon one side as if 

 reclining, the point of the Avings away from the wind, where it clings to 

 the roughnesses of the rocks, and is seldom blown from its foothold. In 

 this position the peculiar gray mottling of the under surface of the 

 exposed portions of the wings so closely resembles the gray rocks them- 

 selves, flecked with minute brown and yelloAv green lichens, that it is 

 almost impossible to discover one in its resting place unless one has seen 

 it alight. The resemblance is of a very marked character, and is unques- 

 tionably a great means of protection. Moreover there are undoubtedly 

 some physical peculiarities which it has gained from its long life upon 

 the mountains which unfit it for residence at a lower level. For as has 

 been seen in the discussion of this species, it cannot, while in the imago 

 state, bear transportation so much as three thousand feet vertically to the base 

 of the steeper slopes, at least if this transportation is effected in a rapid man- 

 ner. Indeed their efforts at flight under such circumstances are so pitia- 

 ble that it would seem very doubtful if the butterfly hurled deep down 

 into the ravines by the fierce blasts which may at times catch it unawares 

 could possibly remount the steep slopes. That such cases of destruction 

 may occur with so feeble winged a butterfly seems by no means impossi- 

 i)le, and I have myself been witness to what was apparently such an 

 instance, when a butterfly starting at my approach was caught by the 

 wind, driven along the edge of the cone of Washington, at no moment in 

 its early voyage far from the level of the ground, to be swept finally high 

 in air, and then be precipitated down Tuckerman's Ravine, whither I was 

 able to follow it for an immense distance as a mere dark speck visible 

 against the white cloud Ijehind it, to finally disappear from vision. 



With regard to the Ijrcnthis, we have here again a case of protective 

 resemblance, though to a less extent ; for in the brilliant red and ashy 

 checkered surface of the under wings, seen when the insect is at complete 



