o 



EREBIA III. 



valley below, there was a narrow, boggy tract, more than a mile long, where 

 Eplpsodea was plentiful; but I found none of the variety spoken of. The only 

 variation there was marked by the absence of the band on under side hind wings, 

 and this was confined to few individuals. 



" Ep'ipsodea has a rather quick, jerky flight. It is not very readily captured, 

 for, although it never appears to be in a great hurry, it flies close to the ground, 

 and is always just ahead, dodging under every bush, and around every grassy 

 hummock, as if in earnest search of something. It takes long flights without 

 going far away, and seldom alights on flowers. Directly the sun is obscured, it 

 dives in the grass, like almost all the mountain diurnals. All the Erebias, as 

 well as the alpine species of Chiouobas, ' play possum,' and pretend to be lifeless 

 when captured, and will lie in or under the net, or on one's hand, some moments 

 in that condition. I have found Ep'ipsodea from June 9th to the end of August, 

 in the front Kange, in Colorado ; at the latter date it was badly worn." 



Mr. Elwes says, Tr. Ent. Soc, Lond., 1889, Part II, p. 334: "I have a sin- 

 gle specimen, and Mr. Godman has a similar one, collected by Bruce in Cashier 

 Valley, Summit County, Colorado, at 12,000 feet, which are considered by Bruce 

 and W. H. Edwards to be a variety of Epipsodea, though it is so different from 

 it that, had I more specimens, I should be inclined to consider it a diflerent 

 species, more especially as Ejjipsodea does not appear to extend to such great 

 elevations, or to vary much ; though its range of altitude is very great. I liave 

 taken it in Idaho at about 2,000 feet elevation, and in the Yellowstone Park at 

 5,000 to 6,000 feet, and have it from Colorado, taken by Bruce, as high as 9,500 

 feet. The specimens above mentioned are somewhat smaller, and with rounder 

 wings, than the average of Epipsodea, but are best marked by the entire ab- 

 sence of ocelli on either wing or on either surface, and the partial disappearance 

 of the red band." In the Synopsis of same paper, page 326, Mr. Elwes puts this 

 under the species name as " ? Var. Brucei." 



Mr. Bean writes : " At Laggan, E/jlpsodea is moderately common in June and 

 early July, frequenting open, grassy flats of the Bow River vallej^, at an altitude 

 of about 5,000 feet. It is, in my experience, rarely found on the mountains, but 

 I took a single male, the past season, on a mountain ridge, at 7,800 feet, or about 

 500 feet above the tree line. This specimen does not dift'er fi"om those of the 

 valley, 3,000 feet below. The form you mention {Brucei), which partly lacks 

 the eye spots, I do not find. 



" Epipsodea occurred at McLean, altitude 1,900 feet, in 1884, though not so 

 common as it is at Laggan, and the localities were open grassy flats." 



The eggs sent me by Mr. Bruce, in 1888, were laid by a female of this var. 

 Brucei, not wholly destitute of spots, there being two or three black points on 



