57 
in full beauty. I can only make one suggestion in partial explanation, 
and that is that our facts are in some degree imperfect, that the ? does 
really emerge much earlier than we suppose, but that she keeps perfectly 
quiet and does not show herself for some time after, not until she is fertilised 
and has acquired some power of flight, which is no doubt rather defective 
in many female butterflies when fresh, and before they have deposited some 
ova. I may also note in connection with E. mnestra, the extreme simi¬ 
larity, almost amounting to identity except in size, between the females 
of E . mnestra and E. ylacialis. Till I worked out a classification on the S 
genitalia, E. ylacialis was always associated with E. scipio, epistyyne and 
other large species with which it has little in common except size, and 
mnestra was similarly placed with the smaller manto, epiphron, &c., with 
which it has no immediate alliance. The genitalia showed mnestra and 
ylacialis to belong clearly to the same group, whilst manto, &c., belonged 
to another, and E. scipio, &c., to a third. It is curious that no one had 
noted the close resemblance of the ? s of the two species, which is so 
obvious when looked for, but would, I suppose, have been regarded as 
meaningless, if not misleading, when the close alliance of the two 
species was unsuspected. 
Amongst the species taken at Fusio are some specimens of Lycaena 
alcon. We met with it afterwards at Macugnaga, and the forms at 
the two places seem to be slightly different. L. alcon is not, I believe, 
an uncommon species, but it so happens that I have only twice before 
met with it, and so it interested me a little. I thought it might 
interest you to show along with these specimens some of the three allied 
species, L. euphemus, L. areas and L. avion, as well as the less close L. iolas, 
whose male very much resembles that of L. alcon. A discrimination of 
these species by their upper surfaces is really difficult, and especially 
by description. It is easy by the undersides, and here both sexes of 
each species agree instead of requiring separate treatment. 
The abundance of larvae and pupae of Anthrocera exulans on one slope 
in the Campolungo Pass was phenomenal. Stones lying about of all 
sizes were abundant, and on many of these a dozen or more cocoons 
of A. exulans would be clustered, and it was difficult to find a stone with¬ 
out one or more cocoons. 
Setina aurita in much variety was abundant at all the stations we 
visited, not only at Fusio, but Macugnaga, Simplon, Evolena, &c. 
The imagines were foimd at Locarno in May, and were still coming out 
at Arolla after mid-August, and half-grown larvae occurred even at 
that date, another of the many instances of the long seasons of 
emergence that many insects have where, as on the Italian slopes of 
the Alps, alpine and almost subtropical conditions occur at a few miles 
distance. I may note Melitaea plioebe, taken April and July ; Stand- 
fussia tenella (var. zermattensis), April to August ; Hercyna sclirankiana, 
April to August. These cases are to be distinguished from those of 
double-broodedness, as in the case of Polyommatus orion, where a dwarfed 
form occurred at Locarno in April, and a large form in July, the 
difference being that in the latter case the species does not inhabit any 
of the higher levels. Melitaea phoebe, which I have mentioned above, 
has no great range of elevation, but the April and July specimens were 
clearly one brood, the April specimens at Locarno, the July ones some 
distance up the Maggia Valley towards, but below, Fusio. 
Along with Erebia jiavofasciata, at various parts of the Campolungo 
