THE RARE BUTTERFLY.

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 17713, 15 March 1923, Page 3

THE RARE BUTTERFLY.

DR. TILLYARD'S DISCOVERY. (SPICIAX. TO "the rwtss.") WELLINGTON, March 14. The'rare butterfly found iatc in a wet season by I)r. Tillyard on the range above the Mount Cook Hermitage has. frequently been observed by climbers in the Southern Alps, though possibly few, if any, of them knew of its rarity. A writer in tho "Dominion" says it was first discovered on March Bth, 1379, by Mr John Benys on the Whitcombe Pass in the Southern Alps, at an altitude of 4000 feet. Mr Benys was a member of a well-known family of sheepfarmers on Castle- Hill and on the Canterbury-West Coast road, and ho secured three specimens of this previously unknown butterfly by knocking them down with his hat. Not a solitary further specimen was recorded until 18<Xi, when largo numbers were found at Bold Peak, Lake Wakatipu. Since then tho Erebiola Butleri, as the species is called, has been found at intervals at Bold Peak, Mount Edrnshaw, and in tho country around Lake Hsirris, and around the l>ead of Lake Wakatipu. Of our few species, the two mountain butterflies and the tusock country butterfly appear to be confined entirely to tho South Island. The other mountain butterfly is much more abundant than that found by I>r. Tillyard, and specimens have been caught on practically all mount..ins above 5100 font in i.eigl.-t. In the- South Island this butterfly, the Erebia Pluto, is found right up to 11,000 feet, and completely cbmv tho line of ordinary plant life. It seems a strange home for such a tiny and fragile insect amid the rocks and ice and mountain galea. Some species of buttei flies, how-over, seem rather to relish refrigeration, for tbey are found up to almost tho extreme north of Greenland. Our own two mountain butterflies appear to disdain the North Island; peaks, for no one has ever found specimens of them on this sido of Cook Strait, though naturalists have kept a very close lookout on lluapehu, Egmont, and the Taraiuaa.