SIX WREKS AMONGST HUNGARIAN BUTTERFLIES. 305 



there is a limestone range. The flora is a most interesting one, 

 including many species familiar in the garden at home, especially 

 of the Campanula group, whilst the great stretches of Spircea 

 arunciis in the forest glades are among the finest natural floral 

 effects I have seen. The cold climate and abundant rainfall is 

 accountable no doubt for the rather scanty insect fauna, as 

 compared with other parts of Hungary ; and the specimens, 

 though many of them are very interesting, have a tendency to 

 run to obscurely marked forms and small size. I speak of the sub- 

 alpine species, for it was only amongst these that I was able to 

 make any observations. 



I arrived at the Palace Hotel, Tatra Lomnitz, about 7 a.m. 

 on the 3rd July, after travelling all night from Budapest ; the 

 rain which had descended continuously for thirty-six hours was 

 still in evidence, and after selecting a room and having a con- 

 versation with the manager, during which he imparted to me 

 the cheerful intelligence that it had rained off and on for the last 

 three weeks, 1 decided to get some sleep. Awaking about noon 

 I was delighted to see that the sun was shining, and after 

 partaking of lunch sallied forth. I may mention here that the 

 ground immediately around the Palace Hotel, " Nagy Szal- 

 loda," in Magyar, especially on the side nearest Tatra Pured, 

 is the best I could find in the Tatra. Leaving the hotel I bore 

 to the left, and found myself in a grassy ride running through 

 the spruce forest, with seats at intervals, and plenty of flowers; 

 here butterflies were quite abundant, the first one netted being 

 Erebia medusa var. hippomedusa, perhaps the most abundant 

 species met with in the Tatra, and occurring everywhere I 

 collected. E. ligea var. adyte was not infrequent, and equally 

 widely spread; a dark form of Coenonympha iphis, with the 

 ocelli on the under side strongly developed, flitted here and there ; 

 and around a swampy spot covered with rough tussocky grass I 

 saw a Coenonympha of slightly different flight and somewhat 

 browner tint ; netting this I was delighted to find I had run to 

 earth a butterfly taken by but few Britishers— C. hero ; this 

 species, which had evidently been out some time, was widely 

 spread on the granite, wherever swamps covered with the rush- 

 like grass were to be found. A flight familiar, but not seen for 

 years, was that ol Carterocephalus palcemon, of which I came across 

 a few specimens each day. I was surprised also to meet with Chry- 

 sophanus hippothoe, type, and with no approach to the mountain 

 form var. eurybia ; the females had a fair amount of copper on 

 the upper side, and the males well marked dark margins to the 

 wings, and in one or two of them the inferiors are more strongly 

 shot with purple than any specimens I have seen. Perhaps the 

 most interesting species I took in the Tatra was a Melitcea 

 with the upper side as dark as M. dictynna, but which has an 

 under side very suggestive of M. aurelia, which the Rev. G. 



ENTOM. DECEMBER, 1909. 2 



