so the struggle becomes refined into the more aesthetic one of colour and brightness between flower and flower.  Hence the scant foliage and vivid bloom would be at once the result of a necessary economy, and a resort to the best method of securing reproduction under the circumstances of insect fertilizing agency.  Or, in other words, while the luxuriant growth is forbidden by the conditions, and thus methods of offence and defence, based upon vigorous development, reduced in importance, it would appear that the struggle is mainly referred to rivalry for insect preference.  It is probable that this is the more economical manner of carrying on the contest.

In the valleys we see on every side the struggle between the vegetative organs of the plant; the soundless battle among the leaves and branches.  The blossom here is carried aloft on a slender stem, or else, taking but a secondary part in the contest, it is relegated to obscurity (P1.  XII.).  Further up on the mountains, where the conditions are more severe and the supplies less abundant, the leaf and branch assume lesser dimensions, for they are costly weapons to provide and the elements are unfriendly

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to their existence (Pl.  XIII.).  Still higher, approaching the climatic limit of vegetable life, the struggle for existence is mainly carried on by the aesthetic rivalry of lowly but conspicuous blossoms.

As regards the conditions of insect life in the higher alps, it came to my notice in a very striking manner that vast numbers of such bees and butterflies as venture up perish in the cold of night time.  It appears as if at the approach of dusk these are attracted by the gleam of the snow, and quitting the pastures, lose themselves upon the glaciers and firns, there to die in hundreds.  Thus in an ascent of the Toedi from the Fridolinshuete we counted in the early dawn sixty-seven frozen bees, twenty-nine dead butterflies, and some half-dozen moths on the Biferten Glacier and Firn.  These numbers, it is to be remembered, only included those lying to either side of our way over the snow, so that the number must have mounted up to thousands when integrated over the entire glacier and firn.  Approaching the summit none were found.  The bees resembled our hive bee in appearance, the butterflies resembled the small white variety common in our gardens, which has yellow and black upon its wings.  One large moth, striped across the abdomen, and measuring nearly two inches in length of body, was found.  Upon our return, long after the sun’s rays had grown strong, we observed some of the butterflies showed signs of reanimation.  We descended so quickly to avoid the inconvenience of the soft snow that we had time for no

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close observation on the frozen bees.  But dead bees are common objects upon the snows of the alps.

These remarks I noted down roughly while at Linthal last summer, but quite recently I read in Natural Science[1] the following note: