55 
reach Fusio by stopping at Faido, a few miles below Airolo, sending 
baggage on by post, and walking over the Campolungo pass to Fusio. 
One may in this way begin one’s collecting a day earlier, and prospect 
the ground which makes Fusio famous at the earliest possible moment. 
The walk is, however, rather a long one, and involves a climb of 5100 
feet. One must be in rather better training than one often is, in one’s 
first day out and after a long journey, to do this comfortably and risk 
the weather. 
We, at any rate, took the easier if more ignoble route, and reached 
Locarno one day at the end of June last, and were pleased to be 
welcomed by a thunderstorm, which did not at all incommode us, and 
rendered the air cool and pleasant, where we had feared to find it 
insufferably hot. Next morning we proceeded to Fusio, passing the 
very picturesque gorge at Ponte Brolla and reaching Bignasco, the 
principal village in the valley, in time for lunch. Bignasco possesses 
a good inn and would be a good centre for a short stay, being opposite 
the opening of a great side valley, the Yal Bavona. ' As a matter of 
fact we found two German entomologists staying here, who joined us 
at Fusio a few days later. The road mounts more rapidly above 
Bignasco and in some dozen more miles reaches Fusio at an altitude 
of 4200ft. On the way up we saw a profusion of butterflies, chiefly 
Melitaea athalia, An/ynnis adippe var. cleodoxa, A. latona, and many 
others that we did not verify. Polyommatus avion was taken and seen 
abundantly, great large fellows nearly twice the size of those taken ten 
weeks before at Locarno. On rocks, by the way, cases of Bankesia 
alpestrella were present, as they also were at Fusio. Fusio is situated 
rather finely at a point where the cataract from the Campolungo pass 
joins the main stream near the top of a rather more rapid ascent than 
generally prevails in the valley. Shortly above Fusio the valley 
extends for some miles, without any considerable ascent, past the 
chalets of Sambuco. 
In the immediate neighbourhood of Fusio, many insects are 
abundant. At the beginning of July we took Erebia medusa behind 
the village, and nearly everywhere, up to 2000ft. above Fusio, Erebia veto 
was common, flying in a lazy flapping manner very much like that of E. 
aethiops , caught with the greatest ease unless on very awkward ground. 
The females were not seen till a week or two later. The chief entomo¬ 
logical attraction of Fusio is the little butterfly that flies in the Campo¬ 
lungo pass, the smallest of the Erebias, Erebia Jiavofasciata. We 
went in search of this and explored many slopes on both sides 
of the pass ; this involves a considerable walk, with a climb of 
3500ft. to the top of the pass, and having no knowledge of the habits 
of the butterfly and its precise habitat, and being out of favour with 
the weather on one or two occasions, having a sunless sky, it was some 
time before we managed to find it, and not then without some 
assistance from our German confreres, who had by this time, settled 
down at Fusio. E. Jiavofasciata occurs at an elevation of 7000ft., and 
always on slopes of grass in close association with the outcrop of a 
white rock of dolomitic composition which is here bedded in ancient 
crystalline strata. This seems to be the circumstance that makes the 
butterfly so local, and enabled it to escape detection till so recent a 
period. We were told that it had been met with on a pass some ten 
miles to the north-west over the same range, but we did not visit this 
