A MONTH IN SWITZERLAND AND ELSEWHERE. 41' 



A Month in Switzerland and elsewliere. 



By GEORGE WHEELER, M.A., F.Z.S., F.E.S. 

 (Contintied from page 4.) 



(x.) The Albula Pass. — A beautiful and interesting journey landed 

 us in the evening of July 7th at Bergiin, the last station but one before 

 the Albula tunnel, and as this was our resting place till we left 

 Switzerland, it will perhaps be best to take my experiences on the Albula 

 Pass next, although my first day's hunting was in the Engadine and 

 the Rosegthal. My Baedeker being an old one I did not know that 

 there was accommodation at Preda, at the entrance to the tunnel, but 

 if I am ever in this neighbourhood again (unless it were in May or 

 early June) I should choose the latter for my headquarters, as the best 

 hunting-ground begins close to the station, and more than half an 

 hour is wasted in getting there by train, wasted that is except for the 

 wonderful beauty and interest of the line with its glorious stone bridges, 

 each made exactly for its own place and looking as if it could belong 

 to no other. 



I made two expeditions to the top of the pass. On the first 

 occasion, July 9th, I was delayed long at Preda by the numbers of 

 butterflies both on the slope leading up from the station, and in the 

 flat meadow, (evidently at one time the bed of a small lake), on the 

 other side of the road, this being the first time this year that I had 

 seen butterflies in Switzerland in anything like abundance. The most 

 conspicuous species was Brenthis pales, the ^ s, large, fresh, and very 

 brilliant, var. uis one would have said unhesitatingly, but that the under- 

 sides were not very yellow, the 5 s all being var. uapaea, varying a 

 good deal in the depth of the ground colour, but universally boasting of 

 bright reflections of a pale but brilliant heliotrope colour, on the whole 

 the most beautiful form I have ever met with. Besides these there 

 were a few, both 3 s and ? s, of the usual mountain form of B. pales, 

 which higher up became the only form to be seen. I should much 

 like the opportunity of breeding B. pales, var. his (with var. napaea), 

 and var. arsilache : the three are superficially abundantly distinct, 

 they differ in their habits, flight, and localities, though not so 

 greatly in the last as in their appearance, since his sometimes 

 overlaps arsilache on the one hand and pales on the other. In 

 speaking thus, I include under isis all the large, square-looking S s, 

 even when they have not a very conspicuous quantity of bright 

 sulphur yellow on the underside of the hindwing, for they are 

 always distinctly yellower and less purplish-red on this wing than 

 the high- mountain pales, and of course differ still more markedly in 

 in this respect from the marsh-land arsilache; the 2 var. napaea of 

 course belongs to isis, and is perhaps the most usual form of the 2 of 

 that variety (or species). Krebia pharte was also common here and 

 fairly fresh ; by the side of the road were one or two specimens of 

 Brenthis ino, and on the road itself Erehia liijea var. aihjte was in some 

 numbers and continued to be so for a considerable distance ; further up 

 a few E. melawpus and E. tymJarns were by the road-side among the 

 grass. On this occasion, knowing no better, I followed the road, and 

 between Preda and the little lake of Palpuogna came across Parnassius 

 delins in a marshy place on the right, and Ci/aniris seDiiargtis in the 

 drier meadows. At this point the sun went in, except for occasional 



