244 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



under side especially the males have a remarkahle likeness to 

 escheri, and I captured more than one of this fine " blue " under 

 the delusion that I had secured its rarer congener. But the 

 females are more distinctive on the upper side, with the several 

 orange spots at the anal angle of the lower wings, and these 

 were busy ovipositing on the Astralagiis, though never common. 

 Close by I noticed the only specimen of Carcharodus lavaterce, a 

 male, encountered this year in Switzerland ; while the Simplon 

 Road, usually so prolific up to the Ganter Bridge before the 

 hotel, was somewhat of a disappointment, so few and far be- 

 tween were the butterflies one looks for in this region. Melit^ea 

 didyma was just emerging; M. dictynna already well advanced; 

 Brenthis euphrosyne generally common but worn, and belonging, 

 I conclude, to the first brood. The larger fritillaries were for 

 the time being conspicuous by their absence, and I continued to 

 take insects which generally are well over, as to the first brood, 

 by the first week in July — Nisoniades tages, H. malvce, and 

 Eucldoe cardamines. 



My first day on the mountains proper, the 16th, found me 

 on the old familiar Steinenthal ground, where again everything 

 was conspicuously backward. Brenthis pales, usually in swarms, 

 occurred but singly. Colias phicomone, afterwards common 

 enough, was also scarce. But I managed to bag a couple of 

 H. andromeda;, which I regard as a more or less rare "skipper"; 

 some magnificent forms of L. avion var. obscura — I have a female 

 in perfect condition, measuring more than two inches in expanse ; 

 and, what I think is generally not common in the higher slopes, 

 some good L. alcon. The Steinenthal produced a couple of small 

 females, which I daresay should be classed var. monticola, Stgr., 

 and almost every day I was out I managed to box a solitary 

 example of the same species, many of the males being quite as 

 large, if not as brilliant, as those which I saw at Biarritz. Such 

 a paucity of Erebias I have never found on the Alps. With the 

 single exception of E. ceto, including two or three var. obscura, 

 Ratzer, and one fine ab. pallida, Tutt, no one was really plenti- 

 ful about Berisal, even E. var. cassiope, and more notably E. 

 melampus, being comparatively few and far between. Higher 

 up, E. gorge occurred sparsely on the rocks, and E. lappona was 

 fairly common, but almost invariably crippled or crumpled hope- 

 lessly ; some specimens I took quite fresh having no more than 

 three wings, others showing failure of wing pigment, or imper- 

 fectly developed nervures — very shabby fellows all and sombre 

 of hue, not to be compared with the brilliantly banded lappona 

 (var. pollux) I took in Lapland last year. Under the Wasenhorn 

 I also found a fresh pair of Pontia callidice, but at this time the 

 snow was barely melted, the yellow sulphur anemones still in 

 full flower, and all other Alpine plants hardly yet developed. I 

 do not remember to have seen a single E. stygne in the week I 



