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regions of perpetual snow. Along the lower edge of the larches 

 deep alleys extend up the slopes, making charming clearings in the 

 woods — clearings which are a perfect paradise to the naturalist. 

 Filled with waving umbellifers and hardy grasses, luxuriant with the 

 beautiful bright tints of Swiss flowers, these charming Swiss wild- 

 flower gardens are the haunts of butterflies innumerable, of rapidly- 

 disappearing lizards, of myriads of ants whose labours and wonderful 

 instmcts puzzle the human mind by their insight and sagacity. 

 How gay the butterflies are ! How eagerly do they, in company 

 with the brilliantly coated Burnet moths, dive deep into the flowers 

 and gather the luscious honey as payment for the work of fertilisa- 

 tion they perform ! 



One of these charming hollows quite near Courmayeur was a 

 veritable pleasure haunt of Burnet moths. No less than six species 

 lived here in amicable and moral neighbourliness, and of these 

 species the palm for beauty and variety must undoubtedly be given 

 to Zygcena carniolica. A fine conspicuous fellow you will say 

 carniolica is when you inspect it in a collector's box, its outspread 

 wings displaying maybe its brightest tints, yet lacking the wonderful 

 charm which all our insects have when considered in relation to the 

 flowers on which they rest ; but it required an entomologist to 

 detect it, and then not always readily, as it clung close to the 

 capitula of knapweed or scabious, and shyly put its long tongue over 

 the edge of the flower and rifled the florets of the stores they had 

 to yield. When, however, the sun shone hotly, and carniolica was 

 really alive, then it was indeed a treat to see the beautiful creatures 

 in their true forester livery of green and crimson, hurtling along like 

 nothing but a Burnet moth, or with booming buzz climb frantically 

 round and round or over and over a flower on which they had alighted. 

 Sometimes, too, a lady, snugly hidden in the herbage, attracted a 

 buzzing crowd of suitors, who showed off their graces in true cavalier 

 fashion in order to win the lady's love. 



But besides the beauty that carniolica added to an already 

 charming landscape, it proved from the fact that the specimens 

 varied so much of the highest possible interest to us as naturalists. 

 Here is a magnificent fellow ! Let us look at him. A real Burnet 

 you observe, with deep green or blue ground colour, two red basal 

 spots, two central spots, and one spot where the outer one is placed 

 in our British Z. trifolii or Z. lonicerce, but in addition we find a sixth 

 spot, not round like that in filipendulcz nor placed in the same 

 position, but a long spot extending almost transversely across the 

 wing, near and parallel to the outer margin, so that there are the 

 five ordinary spots of a British "five-spot" Burnet, with a long 

 linear spot outside them all. The hind wings, too, are characteristi- 

 cally " Burnet," with their crimson colour and dark green margin. 



Yet, to the naturalist, a rapid glance is sufficient to show that 

 there exists among the specimens a great deal of variety, and if one 

 may compare the beauty of individuals where all are so beautiful, 



