5226 Notes of a Tour in Switzerland. 



confined chiefly to the higher mountain regions, in many of which it 

 was far from scarce. 



The neighbourhood of Chamouni must not be omitted among the 

 stations rich in Entomology. Near the woody parts of the valley 

 Vanessa Antiopa seemed to be quite at home. On ascending the 

 mountain towards the Chapeau, on the opposite side of the glacier to 

 Montanvert, several species of Hipparchia, some of them more or less 

 approaching to H. blandina, appeared in abundance. 



Under the head of entomological stations, I will only add, that in 

 the botanical garden at Geneva, on a cloudy day, I took several spe- 

 cimens of Melitaea Dia at rest upon the flowers ; it seems to be not 

 an uncommon species in Switzerland. 



On the Botany of the Alps it is difficult for a lover of plants to 

 speak in measured terms. The Flora is indeed a rich and dainty one. 

 There are so many beautiful and interesting species constantly pre- 

 senting themselves as new to the British botanist, and so many more 

 quite familiar to him as garden favourites, but looking tenfold more 

 beautiful when seen luxuriating at large and growing as Nature bids 

 them, that the vasculum and the drying-book very soon become most 

 inconveniently crowded with specimens. Speaking of alpine plants 

 in general, I should say there is about them a sort of compactness of 

 character, an elegant terseness (if the expression may be allowed), 

 which, in my eyes, gives a charm to these " miniatures of Nature," 

 beyond even that which is afforded by the more gorgeous splendour 

 of a tropical Flora. The bare foliage of an alpine species, to say 

 nothing of the blossom, is oftentimes of exquisite beauty : witness, 

 only as one instance out of many, the foliage of Soldanella alpina; 

 and, I may add, that of the entire genus Saxifraga, Androsace, &c. 

 Even the coarse and robust (Linnaean) genus Tussilago has an alpine 

 species of comparatively diminutive stature and of great elegance. 

 Then, again, their style or mode of growth is characterised by neat- 

 ness. Issuing out of a mere crack on the perpendicular face of a pre- 

 cipice, and forming dense verdant tufts and cushions, or nicely fitted 

 into the exact shape and mould of the nooks and crevices they 

 occupy, they seem, as it were, to be dovetailed into the very rocks 

 they grow on. The sight of these little mountain beauties repeatedly 

 brought to my mind the remark which I well remember to have been 

 made by an old gentleman, long since gone to rest, who in his day 

 used to take great delight in his flower garden : looking at some 

 rather inconspicuous flower (I think it was a species of Silene), he 

 would say, "I like the cut of that flower; it smells of the Alps." 



