from Lolco to Nahuelhuapi. On these grassy downs the beautiful silver butterfly, Argyrophorus argenteus Blanch., is a most conspicuous ornament, flying rapidly in the high wind which usually prevails a few hours after sunrise. It is unique in its coloration among the Lepidoptera, though belonging to the Satyridæ which are all over the world character¬ ised by brown, black and rufous tints.
In the dense shady forest of the Sierra de Pemehue is found another butterfly belonging to the Hesperidæ, Cyclopides Puelmæ Calv., which is also unique in its coloration, being of a bright shining golden colour. Though usually settling on the green leaves of the tall bamboo-like grass, Chusquea, which in many places forms a dense and almost impassable underwood in these forests, it often lights on the brilliant golden flowers of Alstrœmeria aurantiaca Don., which is extremely abundant not only in the forest but also in the open.
It seems to me that any attempt to account for such abnormal colora¬ tion in isolated cases like these by any theories of protective coloration or otherwise is hopeless in the present state of our knowledge.
From Los Arcos, where we found a small outpost of Argentine cavalry, we travelled through a beautiful country at an average elevation of 3,000 to 5,000 feet covered with scattered groves of Araucaria and beech interspersed with grassy downs and stony hills, some of which had flat tops and basaltic columnar sides, past Lake Alumine to Pulmari, and then down the Alumine valley to the Quillen river. Mutisias were the most beautiful flowers in this part of the country, and at the higher elevations assumed a dwarf Alpine form quite different from their long and straggling growth over bushes in the lower parts of the country.
Mutisia is a genus which will require much study before the so-called species can be discriminated in a satisfactory manner. They seem to vary immensely according to the elevation and situation, and I should not like to say that all that have been named by various botanists are good species.
By far the handsomest from a horticultural point of view is the well- known M. decurrens, which, though long known in cultivation, has proved a most difficult and disappointing plant in English gardens. In the lower parts of the country it forms a straggling climber of which the lower part loses its leaves as the top extends, and rarely makes a good show of its splendid flowers. The finest form of it was on the edges of the clearings on an island in Lake Nahuelhuapi. On the mountains south of Lake Alumine it becomes an Alpine plant growing with a stem apparently herbaceous and only two to three feet high at an elevation of 5,000 feet or more, and as in the last days of January (midsummer) it froze here at night, it must be a very hardy plant.
Though I took great trouble to procure good seed of the Mutisias, and dismounted at least fifty times when I saw a likely looking plant, I was unsuccessful in getting any seed that would germinate.
Birds were not numerous and, though Condors were occasionally seen at a distance, they appear to be very much less common than Darwin found them. I only once got near enough to a Condor to distinguish the ruff round the neck, and never got a shot at one. A few Thinocorus, a few snipe and ducks, a single pair of black-necked swans, and an occasional flock of the
