Lepidoptera of the Altai Mountains. 297 



I was unable to find tinoe to do as much as I hoped in 

 other branches of zoology; and the difficulties of the 

 country and the languages were such that we were obhged 

 to confine our journey to much narrower limits than we 



had planned. • i o • 4. 



M. P. P. Semenoff, President of the Entomological bociety 

 of St. Petersburg, also gave me much kind help and 

 advice ; and General Bolderoff, the Governor of the Altai, 

 was also most obliging in furthering our objects. We lett 

 Moscow on May 19tli, in quite summer weather, which, 

 however, only lasted as far as the Ural Mountains. At 

 Kazan we spent a few hours and found several buttertties, 

 includino- P. machaon, Arg. selcnis and dia, already on the 

 wincr fn the great Barabinsky steppe, through which we 

 pass^ed in the train for two days, there was not a green 

 leaf to be seen on the birch trees, and the only Duttertiy i 

 saw was Fieris chloridice. At Obb, where we arrived on May 

 26th, it was still quite cold, and the only butterflies were a 

 few hibernated G. rhamni and Vanessas, besides L. sinapis. 

 Here we left the railway, and went up the Obb river by 

 steamer to Barnaoul, the capital of the Altai district and 

 the only town of importance in it. From here we drove 

 across more or less cultivated and mostly open country to 

 Biisk where we arrived on June 2nd, and fouml the birches 

 and poplars just bursting into leaf. The spring was said 

 to be exceptionally late, from fifteen to twenty days behind 

 the usual time. Up to this point I had seen no sign o 

 real mountains, and the patches of forest were small and 

 stunted ; but from the earth cliffs above Busk, we could 

 see the outlying spurs of the real Altai Mountains. Alter 

 four days' delay, during which I caught a few buttertlies, 

 such as Zymna argiades, Argynnis dia, Fapilio machaon, 

 Polyommatus amphidamas and Anthocharis cardamines,-we 

 at last got off on June 6th, and reached a big village called 

 Altaisk, alter ten hours' driving in a wickerwork country 

 cart the only vehicle which can get over such roads as are 

 found beyond Biisk. The weather continued cold and 

 cloudy, and during the four days we took to reach Ongodai 

 I got very few insects, though the flora, scenery, and coun- 

 try were of a very much more attractive character than 

 anything we had hitherto seen. Larch is the prevailing 

 tree of this part of the Altai Mountains, with spruce in 

 the marshy bottoms, and extremely luxuriant herba- 

 ceous vegetation everywhere except on the dry southern 



