128 FLOWER-FIELDS OF ALPINE SWITZERLAND 



known Jacob's Ladder of our gardens ; or to the 

 drier stretches where the Heather is just tinting 

 its ohve-green branches with a suspicion of rose, 

 and the Rampions, Arnica, Hieracium, and Brown 

 Gentian are minghng with the warm grey, feathery 

 seed-heads of Anemone sulphm-ea. Here we find 

 the flowers and butterflies as numerous and as 

 gay as ever ; here among the grasses is Banagna 

 Atrata, the Httle dull-black moth with white- 

 tipped wings, seeking sanctuary from the devas- 

 tating work of the reapers ; Zygoena carniolica, 

 one of the most distinct and fascinating of the 

 bright Burnet butterflies, a stranger to Eng- 

 land, greedily absorbed upon the flowers of the 

 Scabious ; numberless Fritillaries, speeding hither 

 and thither, their burnished pearl-backed wings 

 flashing in the sunlight, — here, in fact, we have 

 summer at its height, uninjured, undisturbed — 

 a place, as Walden was, where we may " transact 

 some private business with the fewest obstacles." 



Messieurs les etr angers (how good a name I) are 

 now arriving by the hundred. Flora's Feast in 

 this region may be said to be over, and the table 

 is all but cleared. For full two months have we 

 been revelling in a luxury of colour which no 



