158 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



fined to the first named, the remainder occurring exclusively in 

 the Nearctic Area. 



In the Paleearctic Region there are apparently six principal 

 centres of distribution, three of them being situated in Europe 

 and the other three in Asia. The Alps of Central Europe con- 

 stitute the metropolis or headquarters of the alpine Pihopalocera 

 fauna, containing in the genus Krchia alone as many as twenty- 

 five species, that is, nearly one-half of the species inhabiting the 

 whole of the northern hemisphere. On either side of them we 

 have the Pyrenees and the Carpathians, containing about twelve 

 and eleven species respectively ; then there is a great gap until 

 we arrive in Western Siberia, in the neighbourhood of the Thian 

 Shan, with ahout eleven species ; and the Altai and Amur, 

 tending in a north-easterly direction, and containing respectively 

 about fourteen and eleven species apiece. Both north and south 

 of this great central series of mountain chains running through 

 Europe and Asia the number of alpine forms of butterflies 

 rapidly diminishes. Thus in Europe north of the Alps we have 

 about seven species of Erdna in the Cevennes and Auvergne in 

 South-eastern France, some six or seven species in the Jura, 

 five each in the Vosges and the Piiesengeberge, four in the 

 Schwarzwald or Black Forest, four in the Hartz, and three in 

 the Ardennes. All these mountain ranges are more or less in 

 direct continuation of the great central alpine chain, of which 

 they topographically constitute an integral part. In the Ural 

 mountains, far away to the north-east on the confines of Eussia 

 in Europe and Siberia, about five species exist ; in the Scandi- 

 navian mountains there are three, and in Lapland, still further 

 north, four; while England and Scotland only possess two each, 

 and Ireland one. Three of the species, however, which occur 

 in the more northern limits of the distribution of the genus, are 

 not true alpine forms. I refer to Erehia ligea, E. (ethiops, and 

 E. medusa, all of which are found in the Ardennes, and one in 

 Great Britain ; so that the only true alpine species which we 

 possess in this county is Erehia <3jjy>>//7-o», occurring upon the 

 mountains of Cumberland and Westmoreland, the Grampians 

 in Scotland, and the Connemara group in the West of Ireland. 

 South of the Alps the same increasing paucity takes place pre- 

 cisely ; thus in the various mountain ranges of the Iberian 

 Peninsula there are only two or three, including one endemic 

 form ; while only one species, I believe, occurs on the elevated 

 chain of the Sierra Nevada in the extreme south. The Apennines 

 in Italy only contain four or five species at the outside, while the 

 Dinaric Alps in Dalmatia and the Balkans in Turkey are in a 

 similar predicament ; two or three species only are found in the 

 mountains of Greece, and three in Armenia and Asia Minor ; 

 while the very elevated and extensive but isolated chain of the 

 Caucasus, in the same latitude as the Pyrenees, only possesses 



