92 BRITISH BUTTERFLIES. 



beds of, streams. We have seen as many as a hundred A. condon, 

 with dozens of Hirsutina damon, etc., in the space of less than 

 two feet square near Bourg St. Maurice, where the Isere flows 

 beneath the bridge, and the overflow water finds various outlets at 

 some yards distance from the main stream. Near Courmayeur, Bourg 

 d'Arud, and other places, we have seen them in equal numbers, but 

 never a 2 among them all. At such times they are often very 

 quarrelsome, pushing and jostling not only other individuals of their 

 own species, but also large butterflies of other species, edging them 

 slowly over to the very margin of the damp patch, when they will 

 return to the middle of the area, prepared to jostle off any other insect 

 that comes in the way, or interferes in any way whatever with their 

 evident enjoyment. It is exceedingly abundant by the roadsides and on 

 the banks between Hauderes and Arolla, swarming at the trickles run- 

 ning over the pathway, with Hirsutina damon, Polyommatus hylas, Aricia 

 donzelii, A. astrarche, etc. ; and is also very abundant between Saas- 

 Grund and Huteck at the runnels crossing the pathway, with Poly- 

 ommatus icarus, Plebeius argyrognomon, Aricia donzelii, A. astrarche, 

 etc. On August 8th, 1907, on a hot day after two days' continuous 

 rain, every tiny rill on the pathway between Brugnasco and Piora, 

 attracted dozens of A. coridon and other species, but it was on the 

 damp spots on the path round Lake Kitom itself that the " blues " 

 were most abundant; here, thousands of Plebeius argyrognomon, Poly- 

 ommatus eros, Agriades coridon, Cupido minimus, etc., with Argynnis 

 niobe, and several species of Erebia, helped to form a living mass of 

 beauty at every few yards distance, and there must have been some 

 millions of insects at the puddles on the steaming pathway round the 

 lake that noon. A. coridon was especially prominent in these congeries, 

 which, almost motionless for several minutes, were suddenly seen to 

 be seething with excitement as a few A. coridon were seen to be push- 

 ing back sideways the insects that crowded upon them, and which at 

 last edged to the outskirts of the company, suddenly flew or ran into 

 the centre again, leaving the greater number of the A. coridon on the 

 outside. Similar masses, but in this case made up almost entirely of 

 A. coridon, are to be seen almost any hot day in July and August on 

 the edges of the streams and torrents that flow down the mountain 

 valleys, wherever they splash or trickle over, and form shallow pools 

 by the side of the main stream. We have already noted their abun- 

 dance under these conditions at Bourg St. Maurice; atClelles, in early 

 August, 1906, they swarmed on the damp sand patches in the torrent 

 bed directly under the railway viaduct a mile or so below Clelles ; 

 whilst similarly, above Pre St. Didier, this species may be seen in 

 hundreds bathing in the hot damp sand by the edge of the Dora with 

 Hirsutina damon, Polyommatus icarus, Plebeius argyroynomon, Aricia 

 astrarche, etc. Hundreds were to be seen at the roadside pools or by 

 the side of the stream in the Veneon Valley between Bourg d'Oisans 

 and Bourg d'Arud, in August, 1896, with A. thetis, Hirsutina damon, 

 Aricia astrarc/ie, etc., whilst, on a piece of waste ground above St. 

 Michel de Maurienne, this insect, with //. damon, sits in countless 

 myriads along the sides of the runlets that trickle here, there, and 

 everywhere ; it is equally abundant at the little rivulets that cross the 

 path all the way up the Pellice Valley, from Bobbie to Au Pra ; whilst 

 at Abries, in August, 1899, this species, with Hirsutina damon, Aricia 



