28 THE LEPIDOPTERIST 



Some Notes on the Collecting of Rare Species 



By Werner Marchard, Princeton, N. J. 

 While a pupil of a Boarding High School in Davos, 

 Switzerland, in 1899 and 1900, I spent many happy 

 hours in collecting Lepidoptera, certainly as an ama- 

 teur, but intensely interested in some more aberrant 

 or rare species, in which the high mountain valley of 

 that region was comparatively richer than my native 

 country. There were several interesting species which 

 I then secured in quantity because by chance their 

 peculiar habits were discovered. One of them was 

 Hepialus ganna Hb., a species not often met with. 

 In the Alps, in the month of August, Lepidoptera are 

 already somewhat scarce. The nights are cool and 

 above the tree-zone, early in the morning, the ground 

 is often found covered with hoarfrost, which disap- 

 pears soon after sunrise. 



It was on such a morning (we used to go out for 

 walks and climbs about 7:30 A. M.) when I visited 

 with a friend. Dr. Karl Meyer of Vienna, also an 

 ardent Lepidopterist, a place above the tree-zone* 

 obviously with no other purpose than to eat plenty 

 of the berries of Vaccinium uliginosum, which are 

 especially good after having been slightly frozen. My 

 friend advanced a little further upwards on the moun- 

 tain slope, and, after a while, returned with three 

 specimens of Hepialus ganna, all males which he had 

 caught flying over the Rhododendron bushes. No 

 further specimens were caught on that morning but 

 the following day found us again on the spot at the 

 same hour, about half past eight, when the sunshine 

 just began to warm up the dew covered shrubbery. 

 This time I suceeded in finding a female of this species 

 which proved to be unfertilized, and using it as a bait, 

 I collected no less than eighteen males in the course of 

 half an hour. After this time no further specimens 

 appeared. We both and later other collectors, have 

 regularly procured specimens of Hepialus ganna in 

 that locality, where previously it had been taken about 



* About 1900 metres, (5700 feet) above sea level. 



