90 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



here also that for half an hour I sat and watched the strapping 

 Chasseurs Alpins of the French Army defile before me — fresh, 

 merry, and brisk as are all these mountain infantrymen, even 

 with eight hours' march behind them over these stark moun- 

 tains. The little herbage left by the shepherds' flocks the army 

 mules seemed to have finished up ; and for quite an hour's 

 walking I encountered practically nothing of note — a few scattered 

 Colias phicomone, a very occasional Erebia epiphron, var. cas- 

 siope, and rarer Polyommatus pheretes ; even Plebeius argus, the 

 ubiquitous, had diminished, and, of course, as soon as I attained 

 a "not bad eminence," in went the sun, down came the mist, 

 and collecting butterflies in the Lauzanier was over for the day, 

 though it was barely one o'clock. So after lunch and a welcome 

 foot-washing in the torrent (strongly recommended for weary 

 and sore feet), I turned back, seeing nothing more on the wing 

 until just past the opposite hamlet of Maison-M^ane, where the 

 last rays of a belated sun woke into momentary activity a few 

 fine male E, goante. 



Next day being gloriously fine, I set out for the Lac de la 

 Madeleine, which lies on the Italian side of the Col de Larche 

 (6545 ft.), a few hundred yards across the frontier, and about an 

 hour and a half's easy walking from Larche itself. Quite the 

 commonest insect about was Macroglossum stellatarimi, and 

 wherever the sun touched the little patches of sainfoin and 

 lucerne, Colias edusa and C. hyale were chasing one another, 

 with P. apollo and the usual common Pierids. But I did not 

 come across P. napi, var. bryonice ; and I think that, this being a 

 single-brooded species in the Alps, it was probably over. Push- 

 ing on, I did not unfurl until I had reached the " International 

 House," where the red-white-and-blue and the red-white-and- 

 green posts upon the roadside denote the meeting of France 

 and Italy. The Italian Dogana is somewhat further on by the 

 Lake, and the affable Customs officer in command, who 

 regarded my net as an excellent piece of fooling, not being able 

 to direct me to any mountain path which would bring me back 

 into the Lauzanier, I missed no doubt the best collecting 

 ground hereabouts. For example, I failed entirely to hit 

 the right spot for C. palceno, which I suspect occurs only on 

 the Italian slopes, for nowhere could I discover the indispensable 

 Vaccinium, upon which, in common with P. optilete, the larva 

 feeds. 



Within a few yards of the Lake itself, however, I did come 

 across a, to me, new and exceptionally interesting form of Erebia 

 mnestra, this being the variety named by Bellier gorgopJione, 

 and described by him as a distinct species (Ann. Soc. France, 

 1863, pp. 419-420), intermediate between E. gorge of the Alps 

 and E. gorgone of the Pyrenees, but later determined as a 

 localized form of mnestra. This variety is apparently so little 



