42 B. C. ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY 



for the eye and a feast of richness for the innumerable flower frequenting 

 insects. Lupines, Pentstemons, Arnicas and Asters are amongst the 

 commoner herbs, and syrphids, bombyliids and various hymenoptera 

 and lepidoptera come in droves to the feast. A considerable amount of 

 collecting was done in the neighbourhood of these flower slopes, as well 

 as in the alpine meadows above timberline. Some of the material 

 collected is named, but much is not and should provide many new and 

 interesting records of alpine and subalpine species when worked over 

 by specialists. Diptera and hymenoptera were the chief orders collected 

 in, but on the occasion of my last trip in August I had the pleasure of 

 the congenial and erudite company of Mr. A. W. Hanham, who gathered 

 many choice specimens of lepidoptera and coleoptera, some of which 

 are also yet undetermined. 



Five days were spent in camp at the 5,000 ft. level last August, and 

 it might be as well to mention here that camping at this elevation in the 

 dry belt of British Columbia is not at all unpleasant. The nights are 

 not unduly cold, not nearly so cold as those experienced at 4,000 ft. on 

 Mt. Cheam in the wet coast strip. 



From the camping place on Mt. McLean at 5,000 ft. there is another 

 L500 ft. of open Hudsonian association before the timber line is reached 

 at 6,500 ft. This last L500 ft. is very steep going but pleasant and open. 

 Where water is near the surface, the vegetation is quite rank, and coarse 

 growing herbs abound. Collecting was good here in August on the 

 Umbellifers Angelica Lyallii and Heracleum lanatum. Aster foliaceus 

 and Erigeron salsuginosus also were much patronized by insects and 

 some fine Pachytas, a dull yellow Cerambycid, were taken here. Just 

 before leaving the timber, under some horse dung, were found some long 

 legged bugs, black with a reddish shield ; they were apparently feeding 

 on the larvae of a dung beetle there. This proved to be a rather rare 

 insect, Alydus scutellatus, and Mr. Downes, who identified it, informs 

 me only taken once before from British Columbia. 



To those who have toiled up a mountain side through the gloom 

 of the forest I need not describe the joyous feeling attendant on emerg- 

 ing from the timber and gaining the open slopes of an alpine summit. 

 To those who have not, I will merely say they have a treat in store. 

 The timber line on McLean is quite sharply defined, and from the edge 

 of the trees upward the country consists of bare rocky ridges, with 

 occasional dwarfed clumps of conifers. The ridges, although appar- 

 ently bare, are not really so, as a close mat of prostrate herbs covers 

 them, prostrate perforce, the winds occasionally being so strong that 

 mounted Lidians decline to face them while hunting. Grasses, sedges, 

 potentillas, dwarf lupines, heathers, saxifrages, the moss campion and 

 the handsome Eriogonum subalpinum are here at home, but perhaps the 

 commonest plant is the alpine avens, Dryas octopetaia. 



