242 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



SOME NOTES ON SCANDINAVIAN AND LAPLAND 

 BUTTEEFLIES. 



By H. Eowland-Bkown, M.A., F.E.S. 



(plates VII. AND VIII,) 



(Concluded from p. 227.) 



Thus, I am afraid the hopes I had entertained of studying the 

 effect of the twenty-four hours' daylight on Lepidoptera generally 

 came to little or nothing. With regard to butterflies, when the 

 sun was out, I did not observe any before 7.30 or 8 a.m. ; after 

 4 p.m., or even earlier, they disappeared, but whether until next 

 morning remains to be proved, for, as I said before, the sun 

 generally retired about the same time, and did not again show 

 from behind the clouds until close on 11 p.m., or later, during 

 the days that I was within the Arctic Circle on Swedish soil. I 

 noticed that the Geometridse, as might be expected, would fly 

 continuously, however dull the weather, and whatever the hour. 

 But of true night-flying Noctuas, it is a fact that, until I arrived 

 at Alten, I did not encounter one single specimen ; so that I must 

 assume for the study of this particular group also the collector 

 should defer his investigations until considerably later in the 

 year. Still, among the day-fliers, I found the pretty yellow- 

 underwinged Plusia hochemvai'thii, Hochenw., and another Plusia 

 with whitish lower wings, probably P. parilis, Hb. 



July 17th was spent at Hammerfest, waiting for the little 

 steamer which leaves for Alten at midnight, but, as it rained all 

 day, I had no opportunity for observations. But the butter- 

 fly fauna, at all events, of this most northerly and smelly town 

 is extremely limited, and the vegetation barren compared with 

 the eastern end of the fiord, up which, in deluges of rain, I 

 presently proceeded. Entomologically, the 18th was an utter 

 failure, though no rain fell, and I found some very promising 

 collecting-ground close to the pretty church at Bossekop — well- 

 wooded, and with a flora delightful to the eye after the sterile 

 north Norwegian coast-land. L. var. aegidion was evidently 

 common among the Vaccinium, and L. var. cyparissus also ; 

 while I took a single specimen of Chrysophanus var. hypophloeas 

 {=amcricana, d'Urban) asleep on a flower. A few Geometers 

 were also flitting languidly about — nothing else ; the atmosphere 

 warm and oppressive, with an abundance of mosquitoes, but 

 still nothing like the pest they were at Abisko. July 20th, when 

 I made a little expedition to the slopes of Skaaddevarre, was also 

 destined to be a dies non, though I had hoped to meet with 

 Argynnis chariclea here, as recorded by Staudinger. Meanwhile 

 the sun broke through the clouds on the afternoon of the 19th, 

 and the sky cleared as if by magic, with the result that such 



