392 BRITISH BUTTERFLIES. 



Polyommatus meleager, in a dry watercourse with steep sides, covered 

 with grass and thyme, whilst, along its lower edges, starved plants of 

 the Alpine thistle could hardly support their yellow-green capitula, 

 on which Callimorpha her a and Lithosia unita hung in great abundance, 

 whilst the lovely softgrey-undersided Hipparchia statilinas haunted the 

 rocks in the steep bed of the dried-up stream ; it was also found in the 

 lovely meadow-clearings in the pine-forest opposite Chatillon in the 

 Val d'Aosta, as well as in the beautiful Val Anzasca ; behind Susa, it 

 occurs in a delightful rocky glen, the sides of wbich are clothed with 

 chestnut and walnut trees, and large bushes of Collntea arborescens, 

 round which Lampides boeticus was flying freely, but in the open parts 

 of which the thyme-blossom attracted A. thetis, Polyommatus hylas, 

 and many other interesting species ; further south, in the Lucca 

 district, Verity records it as swarming locally in a pine grove in 

 September. In Spain, it affects a variety of situations, e.g., it is 

 common on the sandy ground near the sea at Bilbao (Seebold); flies in 

 the gorge of the Guadalaviar, three miles below Albarracin, with 

 Polyommatus escheri, P. hylas var. nivescens, Ayriades coridon var. 

 his p ana, Hirsutina admetus, Coenonympha dorus, etc. (Sheldon) ; occurs 

 on a ridge beyond the hill of the Alhambra at Granada, which falls 

 in steep and well- wooded declivities to the Darro on the north, and in 

 broken precipices and rocky glens to the Genii on the south, with 

 hollows overgrown with cistus, broom, and lavender, and little moun- 

 tain meadows brilliant with flowers (Nicholl). In Switzerland, it flies 

 in a variety of vastly different habitats including the rough meadows 

 at Versoix, the slopes of the Saleve from the foot to its summit, 

 the main and lateral vallej^s of the Rhone, reaching well up into 

 the Combe d'Arolla, above Zermatt, Berisal, Saas-Fee, etc. ; it occurs 

 on the slopes between Martigny and Vernayaz, as well as on marshy 

 spots between Villars and Chesieres, with an abundance of Aricia 

 euiuedon, and some Loweia amphidamas; indeed, Frey says that it 

 occurs almost everywhere in the lowlands, is abundant at the foot of 

 the Jura, and in many alpine valle} T s, extending up to 6500ft., whilst 

 Wheeler considers it generally distributed and often common especially 

 in the lowlands and lower slopes of the mountains, clearings of woods, 

 etc. We have taken the species high up on the Albula Pass, above 

 the Weissenstein Inn, where Pamassius delius, Melampias epiphron, 

 Erebia pronoe, E. tyndarus, Colias pkicomone, and other high alpine 

 butterflies were on the wing ; we also found it, with Albulina pheretes, 

 where the Wormser Joch leads into the Muranza-Thal, as well as 

 lower down in the valley, whilst again it occurred almost at the 

 summit of the Ofen Pass, where Pontia calUdice and swarms of Erebia 

 nevine were the chief species noted ; it appeared also on the flower- 

 banks just beyond the Via Mala, and has been taken in many other 

 high alpine habitats. The localities in the alps of Germany and 

 Austria are very similar ; in Tirol, the flower-clad slopes by the road- 

 side and the openings into the pinewoods in the Sarnthal, and the stony 

 thyme-strewn slopes in the Trafoi-thal just above Gomagoi, are typical 

 localities, yet Nickerl says that it haunts meadows and clover-fields in 

 Bohemia. Zeller also notes it as occurring in meadows at Flitsch in 

 Carinthia, whilst llofner notes that the species occurs in the valleys 

 and extends up the Glockner to the well-known Pasterze, where it 

 occurs with Anthrocera exulans* How different must be the latter 



