992 Insects. 



those species only whose habitat is the mountain's top, but in most 

 of those also which in England we should seek for in low or even 

 marshy districts — the swallow-tails, the fritillaries, and the coppers. 

 For a thousand feet higher most of them are not infrequent, gradually 

 giving place to the true dingy inhabitants of this more cloudy 

 climate — the Erebias or browns — many of w r hich are abundant at an 

 elevation of from five to six thousand feet ; w T ith the highest fliers 

 of which I was pleased to notice two of our commonest butterflies, 

 the tortoiseshell and large garden white. 



Two things struck me as unusual in my capture of butterflies in 

 Switzerland ; the great number of cripples, with wings imperfectly 

 unfolded, which I met with in the early summer, and the numbers of 

 lice or Acari with which many of the mountain Erebias were infested. 

 This may not be unusual, but I never noticed it at home. 



Before entering into particulars, I may state that I captured, or 

 might have done so, ninety-three species in the two months that I 

 was there. 



The Parnassius Apollo, which I first took on the Righi on the 13th 

 of June, was quite fresh in the vale of Chamouni on the 30th of July. 

 It is common on most of the mountain sides which rise from the 

 elevated valleys ; usually ranging at a lower level, although met with 

 at an elevation of five thousand feet on the mountains near the 

 glacier above the Baths of Loeche, whither I had gone to seek for 

 P. Phoebus, which usually flies higher than Apollo, and is more diffi- 

 cult to take. The place which I have just mentioned — a piece of 

 beautiful green turf upon the margin of a glacier — was the only 

 locality where I saw this species, but was told by my guide, when it 

 was too late to profit by his information — and I had already passed 

 the mountain — that it is abundant on one side of the Col de Balme. 

 I took the P. Phcebus in great perfection on the 22nd of July, and on 

 the same spot worn-out specimens of Apollo and Mnemosyne. 



In a collection of Swiss insects, belonging to Mons. Le Diacre 

 Hiss, at Thun, is a specimen of Phcebus, in which the ocelli on the 

 under wing are quite black, a variety, which has sometimes been 

 imitated with black paint. P. Phcebus is known in Switzerland by 

 the name of Petit Apollo. 



I was too late for fresh specimens of the white, with the exception 

 of D. Daplidice, which was plentiful in the Vallais on the 23rd of 

 July. I saw P. Callidice on the Flegere in Chamouni on the 29th of 

 July, but sadly worn. 



Colias Hyale and Edusa are everywhere in the valleys, but 



