272 Mr. H. J. Elwes on 



the outer valleys of the Andes, but on the coast there is much 

 brushwood, and m narrow gorges and valleys some timber, 

 though tlie plains are still very dry. South of the Biobio 

 the climate changes very suddenly, and when Valdivia is 

 reached the rainfall is so gTcat that the country is covered 

 with a forest so dense that one can hardly penetrate it ; 

 where ferns grow twelve feet high, and a bamboo-like 

 grass climbs the trees to a height of forty feet.* Inland, 

 liowever, there is some open savannah and marshy 

 country at the foot of t\\e volcanoes, south of Lake 

 Llanqviihu','. 



This region has a few peculiar Satyridns and Hesperid;e, 

 but is extremely poor in diurnal Lepidoptera, though very 

 little collecting has been done except about Valdivia and 

 La Union. 



Lastly, I take the region south of lat. 42 down to the 

 Straits of Magellan, which is familiar to us from the 

 writings of Darwin, Cunningham, and other naturalists, and 

 which includes a great number of forest-clad islands and 

 unexplored mountains, of which our zoological knowledge 

 at present is very limited. Some parts of the coast are 

 fairly well known to naturalists, and the district lying 

 south of Lake Nahuelhuapi and east of the watershed, 

 which has been described by Moreno and more recently 

 by Prichard,t is beginning to attract colonists, especially at 

 the head-waters of the Chubut river, where there is some 

 good ranching country now occupied by Welsh settlers 

 from the east coast. This region will probably be found 

 to contain many of the species which I found farther north, 

 but the west coast and Straits of Magellan have such a 

 very wet and inclement climate that there can be but few 

 butterflies, and those few nearly allied to or identical with 

 those of Chile and Argentina. 



The list of butterflies which follows is based on what 

 is by far the most complete collection of Chilean butterflies 

 ever brought together in Europe, comprising my own 

 collection, that of Mr. Edmonds, which was contained in 

 the British Museum, and Mr. Godman's collection, and the 

 specimens taken by our fellow, Mr. J. J.Walker, R.N., when 

 serving on the coast at Coquimbo, Valparaiso and Concep- 

 cion. I have also been able to examine the types of 



* See Darwin's ' Joiu-nal,' New Edition, Murray, 1890, pp. 318- 

 322. 



t Prichard, 'Tlirough the Heart of Patagonia,' London, 1902. 



