THE UPPER ENGADINE IN 1914. 111 
Below this villa was a rough wall some four ft. six ins. 
high, with a made channel of mould along the top, in which 
grew abundance of the beautiful alpine snapdragon, Linaria 
alpina, and along the foot of this wall was a stream of ants which 
I traced for many yards in both directions, without finding either the 
nest or the destination, except that one end of the stream was lost in 
the garden of the villa. The species was a small one, but the ants 
were in great numbers. The form eris of A. nivbe was in the majority, 
as usual in the Alps, but the typical silvery underside form was well 
represented, of differing degrees of development of the silver. Some of 
the females of A. agylaia were rich in colour and with much admixture 
of black scaling on the hindwings. The undersides of the hindwings 
also varied considerably from bright vivid green to a rich greenish- 
brown. The silver on the underside of the forewings was also well 
developed near the apex, one example having six well developed silver 
spots in the marginal row and four in a second row, two of which were 
quite well emphasised. The “blues”? were quite a feature of this 
road. Agriades thetis, a few, Latiorina orbitulus, an odd one, 
Polyommatus eros in swarms, Aricia donzelii, a couple, Aricia medon 
var. alpina and Plebeius argyrognomon, I noted among others. A. thetis 
was a small race. A male taken was of the punctata form, with a 
somewhat curiously aberrant underside of the forewings, in which a 
number of the spots were doubled by a small, separate and distinct 
white-circled black dot on their innerside. The blue of this example 
was more that of icarus than of typical male thetis. P. eros was the 
ereat drinker at the moist spots in the road; some had well-defined 
spots on the margin of the upperside of hindwings=punctata of thetis. 
Of A. donzelii I subsequently found the headquarters, which was not 
on this road at all, but on the slopes above the upper Campfer road, 
where Geranium sylvaticum grew in abundance among the pine trees. 
Plebeius argyrognomon contended with /’. eros for the moisture in the 
road, so that it was often difficult to tell which species predominated. 
Some examples showed scarcely a trace of the red on the underside 
marginal markings, which were very dull brown. One example had a 
wide marginal black line at base of fringes. In some specimens there 
was a decided diminution of silver, and the eye-spots were very ill- 
defined and dull. A single Urbicola comma was taken. This was a 
species which was certainly rare here, for no where did it occur in more 
than in single examples. There were three species of Zyyaena, a small 
form of Z. purpuralis, a tew Z. achilleae, and a six-spotted Zyyaena, 
probably small filipendulae. Colias phicomone were racing across the 
road from slope to slope, and all the Heodes hippothoé were by this 
time in rags. The flowers were still very dominant in the pastures 
only partially cut, and on rough ground the smaller pink gentians were 
still to be found in quantity as well as one of the wild pinks. 
Among the Heterocera were plenty of Acidalia flaveolaria and 
Cleogene lutearia, a few Xanthorhoé sociata, a good number of Noctua 
festiva and Agrotis ocellina, and a sprinkling of Aphelia aryentana. 
August 3rd was the day of the great mobilisaton at Bevers; 10,000 
men assembled and were equipped and distributed along the frontiers 
during the next few days. From this time it became quite impossible 
to go any long outings, no conveyances could be obtained, the trains 
were all taken over by the military, and we were isolated from the 
