108 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [March, ’08 
Argynnis astarte, Doubl.-Hew., and other High 
Mountain Butterflies. 
By F. H. Wo.u.ry Don, Millarville, Alberta. 
In Can. Ent., xl, p. 14, January of the present year, is an 
article by Dr. Henry Skinner, expressing regret that so few 
definitely specified localities for Azgynnis astarte have ever 
been recorded. As some notes of mine on this and other 
Alberta species will shortly appear in those pages, I thought 
I would take the opportunity of dealing more fully with the 
habitats and habits of some of the high mountaineers of Brit- 
ish America in the News. Were I in Dr. Skinner’s position 
of never having ‘‘ been there before,’’ I suppose I should have 
felt just the same about the matter, and been quite at a loss, 
once arrived at one of the C. P. R. hotels in the Canadian 
Rockies, where, when or how to go to the most likely place to 
get or even to see astarte in the shortest possible time. Yet 
had I not read his article, I should probably not have troubled 
to name any exact locality, so confident do I feel that astarte 
could be found ina favorable season upon any peak at or above 
the timber-line—8o0o0o0 feet is not necessary—round Banff or 
Laggan, or the adjacent neighborhood, a few weeks after they 
were sufficiently bare of the previous winter’s snow. . 
My first acquaintance with the mountain tops was in 1900, 
when I made the trip from Laggan Station to the nearest moun- 
tain to the northeast, as that had been pointed out to me a few 
years previously by Captain H. J. Elwes, as one which he 
thought Mr. Bean had told him was a good one for butterflies. 
Mr. Bean’s ‘‘ low, smooth mountain directly north of Laggan ’’ 
is very likely this, as the station hands told me he used to go and 
camp high up on it for weeks. His mountain ‘‘ three miles 
southwest of Laggan, 8500 feet,’’ is very likely Piran, or St. 
Piran, as it is called on some maps, of which the latest com- 
puted height is 8610 feet. Well, I got there; and just below 
the summit I got a portion, about half—the central half of an 
astarte 8. If the rest of him had been anywhere near, it would 
probably have assisted him better to keep out of my way, and 
I should not have got him. On the top ridge, a long, even 
