THREE WEEKS IN DAUPHINY. 983 
at Le Lauteret as Festuca pumilosa—is the pabulum of the species. 
This same female obliged with several eggs in the pill-box to 
which she was consigned-—a rather unusual occurrence in my 
experience of this butterfly, and of the whole Erebias, though I 
have known single eggs expressed from the body in the killing- 
bottle. As at Larche, the La Grave alecto are without exception 
of the form which M. Oberthiir has named duponcheli, and hardly 
to be distinguished from the familiar var. et ab. pluto of the 
Central Alps. Iam sure this insect is possessed of abnormal 
hearing power; when approaching, the displacement of the 
smallest stone causes it to get up. Its method of flight is also 
peculiar. I watched many males in their apparently aimless 
and inconsequent zigzag flight over the moraine—like that of 
Orgyia antiqua in a London square—suddenly flopping on a 
stone, very seldom on a flower, and immediately orienting to the 
sun with wide outspread wings. The females do not indulge 
in these eccentricities. They keep low above the surface when on 
the wing, and are naturally sluggish and slower than the males. 
When the sun is overcast both sexes at once slip for shelter 
under a stone, or into the crevices of rock, and neither, as 
with some other Hrebias, can be got to move when the sky is 
cloudy. 
It is perhaps worth remark also that, if the tendency of 
the grass Hrebias is towards diminutive size at La Grave 
and Le Lauteret, the ubiquitous stygne is rather larger than 
otherwise. Where they present local variation, I make a point 
each year of netting a few, but the aberration captured in the 
gorge below the vacherie on the Meije path, about an hour’s easy 
walking from the village, came as a great surprise, and is the 
most remarkable form of this common butterfly I have ever 
encountered. It is an absolutely fresh male. The bands 
on both wings appear to be better developed than usual, but 
this, I think, is more apparent than real, and due to the entire 
absence of the black spots in which ordinarily the white pupils 
are set. The pupils themselves are reduced to mere metallic 
pin-points. Unless already distinguished with a name, I propose 
to call it abannulata, new ab., and it would be interesting to hear 
_ whether any of the many lepidopterists who have collected 
E. stygne in France or elsewhere have met with a similar form. 
Favre's ab. aboculata female is described by Mr. Wheeler 
(‘Butterflies of Switzerland,’ p. 132) as ‘‘ without spots fore 
wing, upper and under side; hind wing, with two black dots in 
place of eye-spots.” In M. Oberthur’s figures of his var. 
gavarnica, male (‘ Lépid. Comparée,’ plate xxv., fase. iii.), the 
rusty bands on the upper side of the fore wings are much 
narrower than in the type, the pupilled spots tiny (under side 
one small apical spot only), and much closer to the outer margin; 
the female showing the same peculiarities. 
2a 2 
