298 Mr. H. J. Elwes on the 



exposures of the hillsides. A day before reaching Ongodai, 

 the valleys opened out very much into wide steppe-like 

 flats, on which thousands of horses were grazing, and the 

 last Russian villages ceased. Beyond Sheballina there are 

 hardly any Russian settlers, except a few merchants ; and 

 Tartars, who speak a language closely akin to Turkish, and 

 live a nomadic life, are the only inhabitants. At Ongodai 

 we had another delay of four days, whilst waiting for 

 horses, as beyond this point everything has to be packed 

 on horseback. This village is a very promising place for a 

 collector, lying at an elevation of about 8000 feet, and close 

 to well- wooded valleys running up into mountains at least 

 6000 feet high. 



The weather here began to be quite warm, and though 

 butterflies were still scarce, I got some very good species 

 which I had not expected, among them Pampldla argyro- 

 stigma, Eversm., and QHncis sculda, both of which were new 

 to Western Siberia. 



A Russian entomologist, M. Alexis Jacobson,joined us here 

 and stayed at Ongodai for. two months. As he Avas good 

 enough to send me his collection oi' Ehojmloccra, I am able to 

 form a good idea of the butterflies of this part of the Altai, 

 and to add several species to the list of those I took myself. 



We left Ongodai on June 14th, and marched about 

 250 versts in seven days, crossing the deep hot valley 

 of the Katuna river on the second day, then over a 

 pass of about 5000 feet to avoid a gorge in the Katuna 

 valley, to a place called Ena, where the scenery was very 

 peculiar, and thence up the valley of the Tchuja river for 

 five days to Kuch Agatch. 



My collecting was of course very much confined to the 

 line of march, but I always kept a man with me to hold 

 my horse, and dismounted whenever I saw a likely spot or 

 an insect I wanted. The sun was very intermittent, and 

 on most days we had thunderstorms ; but in the valley of 

 the Tchuja I got many good butterflies, especially near 

 Aibulak at about 4000 feet elevation, where Thcdafridvald- 

 szJcyi and Ercbia cdda and a very large and distinct species of 

 (JEneis were taken. In the steppe of Kurai, which is sur- 

 rounded with high snowy mountains, the only abundant 

 insect was Triphysa •phryne, ; and when we ascended to the 

 gorge between it and the Upper Tchuja Steppe, we found 

 great banks of snow still unmelted in the valley at Ku- 

 yuktana, and vegetation extremely backward ; but a new 



