LEPIDOPTEEOLOGICAL NOTES FROM OETA IN PIEDMONT. 325 



a purpose, and suggest the possibilities of a district to those who are 

 meditating a visit. If then I may be allowed to aim at nothing higher 

 than a hasty and very incomplete account of the butterflies which came 

 in my way, I am glad to make an effort to relate my experiences, after 

 arriving at Orta, late in the evening of May 11th, at the Hotel 

 Belvedere on the summit of Sacro Monte. We had expected great 

 things, and to find the insect fauna much more unlike our Swiss 

 catalogue than proved to be actually the case. Though nature was 

 still in its spring attire and the pheasant-eyed narcissus filled all the 

 meadows, it was too late for many of the earlier things. I am not now 

 to write of flowers, but it is impossible to pass over without a word of 

 grateful recollection, the exquisite display in the fields and woods, and 

 also in the gardens, of the most luxuriant growth it is possible to 

 conceive. Except where the vine was cultivated, the Spanish chestnut 

 reigned almost alone, but, whatever its merits, I do not think it is pro- 

 ductive of many good insects, especially in the earlier part of the year. On 

 the Sacro Monte there is a wood of very fine pines with a mixture of 

 beech and oak and a grand row of clipped hornbeam, forming an avenue 

 up the main ascent. Of course, though Orta was our temporary home, 

 many expeditions were made to neighbouring places, as Valle Strona, 

 Val Anzasca, and Crevola, and as far as possible, without overburdening 

 my notes with localities and dates, I will notice what captures or 

 observations refer rather to these places than to Orta. 



The Sacro Monte itself, a sort of small private elevated park attached 

 to the hotel, is excellent ground, but the best places in the immediate 

 neighbourhood, so far as I learned to know them, were, first, about a 

 mile below Orta, just over the railway on the road to Carcegna, and, 

 secondly, in the valley behind the viaduct at Pettenasco. These three places 

 had between them, more or less abundantly, every species, except Liby- 

 theaceltis, which I took, unless it may he Argijnnis \a:T. deodoxa. But as 

 I neglected these spots for more distant rambles tow^ards the end of 

 our stay, A. var. deodoxa and many more things with which I did not meet 

 may be there. With this preface I v/ill plunge at once into a detailed 

 list of what I saw. 



Hespeeides. — Spilothi/nis altliaeae was generally distributed in the 

 locality and more particularly in the Strona valley. It is a vexatiously 

 difficult insect to secure. ;S'. lavaterae was very fine in most places 

 towards the end of our stay. Syridithus cartliami fairly abundant, and 

 quite ordinary in form ; S. fritillum ? var. alveus, I think, was present at 

 Orta; S.sao was fine but not common ; S.m ah- ae,cihi\nda,nt; Nisoniades 

 tar/es, more or less generally distributed, and very common at Varallo ; 

 Thyinelicus thaumas, and Pamphila fujlvanus, abundant, but 'for P. comma 

 we were, I suspect, too early. In the Anzasca valley I took one Cartero- 

 cephalm imlaemon, a very dark and dingy form. 



Lyc^nidbs. — Among the blues I had hoped for great sport, and 

 many new forms, but results led to the opinion that the Ehone valley 

 is much more interesting in this respect, but better things would have 

 been done no doubt a month later. My first anxiety was to obtain 

 Polyommatus orion; 1 found thefirst on May 16th, abouttwo milesupthe 

 Val Anzasca, but by no means in good condition; it appears, however, 

 to have a continuous succession of emergences, and from first to last 

 I managed to get together a fairly long series of good specimens — but 

 all very much smaller than some from Crevola, taken by a friend in 



