1881 .] Analyses of Books. 
observations of this kind are particularly needed along the 
great mountain chain which separates Central from Southern 
Europe as being calculated to show the respective adaptability of 
their northern and southern slopes to the life of different groups 
and the influence of the Pyrenees. Alps, Carpathians, &c., in 
obstructing or diverting the migrations of species. It is also calcu- 
lated to throw light upon another point often overlooked as a con- 
dition of animal life— the influence of altitude. _ Swiss_ and 
South German naturalists recognise here six distinCt regions : 
the plains and lower eminences up to 1800 feet (569 metres) 
above sea-level ; the mountain dales with the lower forest-region 
up to about 1400 metres ; the upper forest zone reaching to 
1740 metres ; the lower Alpine region up to 2000 metres ; the 
lower Alpine to 2500 metres ; and finally the snow-region 
including the mountain-summits. 
The Tauferer valley does not extend down into the first region, 
and in consequence certain genera — such as Apatura-— are ab- 
sent, whilst others — such as Papilio, Linienitis, and Satyrus - 
are but slightly represented. The number of species and varie- 
ties actually captured or identified by the author and his friends 
amounts to — Rhopalocera, 134 ; Sphingidae, 29; Bombycidae, 80 ; 
NoCtuidae and Geometridae, 166 each, making a total of 575 Micro- 
Lepidoptera. If from the 134 butterflies we deduCt the 25 con- 
sidered as mere varieties, there remain 109 true species. T his 
is the more remarkable if we consider that many trees and shrubs 
upon which caterpillars feed are wanting, such as the oak, the 
beech, the snow-ball tree, the lilac, and the spindle-tree. The 
geological character of the district varies little, so that the great 
valley and its lateral dales afford no opportunity of studying the 
influence of such features upon the local occurrence of species. 
Still every dale has some peculiar feature in the forms which it 
presents. During the last thirty years the author has observed 
not a few changes in the Lepidopterous fauna of the district, 
some of them referrible to the destruction of the forests and the 
recession of the glaciers. It does not appear to have formed any 
part of the author’s plan to note whether specimens of any spe- 
cies found in this district vary in a uniform manner, whether in 
size and colouration, from their fellows in other Alpine valleys, 
or in the low grounds of Germany or Italy. 
We must pronounce this pamphlet a useful contribution to 
entomology, and we wish that some of that unhappy class of 
collectors who waste their days in amassing so-called “ British ” 
species, and who give from £8 to £40 for a specimen merely be- 
cause it has been caught in the United Kingdom, would spend 
their leisure in a similar manner to Prof. Weiler. 
VOL, III. (THIRD SERIES.) 
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