214 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



through the thick foliage, he looks almost as big as a turkey- 

 cock, and the air is tilled with the rattling whirr of his big wings. 

 But the female hangs about, looking after her young, and is only 

 languidly alarmed at the apparition of the human biped. On 

 the Blefjeld, which my companion heroically scaled under a 

 blazing sun, he saw ptarmigan, snow bunting, a lark (of which 

 he took one egg, not yet determined), and a tit which he believed 

 to be Parus norvegicus. 



I hardly dare trust myself to speak of the Diptera. The bare 

 thought of them sets up a sense of urtication from head to foot ; 

 but there are only six species for me :— 



No. 1. — A big gadfly with apple-green head, fussy and 



officious — a kind of German " dumme August" — a truly 



awful buzzer, but an arrant coward if you only fix your eye 



on him. 

 No. 2. — A smaller gadfly, less noisy, but with a keen eye to 



business, prompt and effective, with a proboscis that seems 



to go right down to the marrow at once. 

 No. 3. — The most deadly of all ; a small dipteron with gauzy 



grey-speckled wings, and a proboscis like an invisible needle 



— a furtive and silent pest, that deposits its poison and is 



off before you know that it has settled. 

 No. 4. — A handsome, brown-blotched, black and yellow bodied 



little thing, only a degree less venomous than No. 3. 

 These are about you in countless swarms all day long, in sun- 

 shine and shade alike, and you come home in a state more 

 easily imagined than described. The other two are the homely 

 twilight midge, and the familiar mosquito that hums about your 

 bed at night and counterpoints his melody upon your defenceless 

 brow and hands. And yet, in spite of these torments, which 

 are very real at the time, there is in those vast solitudes — where 

 one may walk for days without meeting a soul — such a sense of 

 freedom, and of the pure enjoyment of nature in one of its 

 grandest forms, and the fascinations of the country and people 

 generally are so great, that all else is soon forgotten, and one is 

 quite ready to renew one's experiences on the first opportunity. 



List of Rhopalocera Noted or Taken. 



Papilio machaon, L. — A few only, large and fine, at both places. 



Aporia cratagi, L. — Abundant, large and strongly veined, at both 

 places. 



Pieris brassicee, L. — Fairly common. 



P. rapce, L. — One or two noted. 



Euchloe cardamines, L. — Common. 



Leucophasia sinapis, L. — Very common. 



Colias palano var. lapponica, Stgr. — Abundant, both at Saeterstoen 

 and Bolkesjo. 



Thecla rtibi, L. — Common. 



