212 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



conveyance carrying our four portmanteaus and the driver on a 

 sort of protruding platform behind — to Bolkesjo, eighteen miles, 

 in 4^ hours. The road seemed to have been constructed on the 

 bee-line principle ; a few yards to right or left would often have 

 made a comparatively level track of a deeply accented switch- 

 back, but this would not have been consistent with the hardy 

 Norseman's contempt for obstacles, so we had to do at least half 

 the journey on foot. At five kilometers from Kongsberg we left 

 the broad valley of the Laagen — a large river completely choked 

 in one place by countless logs of floating timber several feet 

 deep — and turned off into a steep and very rough road through 

 the forest, which stretched away for miles apparently on either 

 side, with hardly a break, till we reached our destination. In 

 small clearings here and there Argynnis selene and euphrosyne 

 were as abundant as at Saeterstoen, and Colias palcsno var. 

 lapponica sailed along over patches of very wet marsh covered 

 with Eriophorum polystachion, and a smaller species, probably 

 alpinum. 



The village of Bolkesjo is most romantically situated on the 

 steep incline of a hill above the very large and — as the Germans 

 would s&y—Jischreich lake of Folsjo. On the far side of the lake 

 is a long range of fir-clad hills, rising one behind the other, and 

 culminating in the "Gausta" — a leonine-looking mountain of 

 6180 ft., broadly streaked with snow. The firs are interrupted 

 here and there with bright green slopes, or low-lying meadows, 

 marvellously rich in colour with sorrel and a bronze-tinted 

 festuca ; and when the setting sun, with that indescribable 

 translucency peculiar to these latitudes, threw its glamour over 

 the scene, one lost count of time, and sleep and dreams were 

 only trivial incidents in a long day. So dazzling, and at the 

 same time so entirely restful and satisfying, were these sunsets, 

 that the artist of our party was perpetually tearing his hair into 

 metaphorical shreds at his inability to reproduce them. He had 

 this advantage, however, over his brethren of the net, in that he 

 could pursue his art in the delicious cool of the evening, and 

 might more than once have been seen at work up to half-past 

 ten and eleven o'clock. 



At our present elevation — and we could work from 1500 ft. to 

 4000 ft. — it was not unreasonable to hope for a somewhat 

 different fauna to that of Saeterstoen, at the most 400 ft. above 

 sea-level. The only strangers, however, were the rare Argynnis 

 frigga, a mile or more beyond and above the hotel, and Erebia 

 lappona, on the rocky slopes of the " Blefjeld," a hill 4000 ft. 

 high. The collecting-ground here was all on an incline at 

 angles of from 30° to 45°, and the forest, although rather less 

 boggy, was more fatiguing than at our first station by reason of 

 the slippery character of the pine-needles and rocks on a slope 

 — and, in my own case, the fatal omission of nails in the boots. 



