57 



will have to be content with bread (and this you may have to tramp 

 miles to discover) and wine — which it is wise not to touch during 

 sunshine, and after the day's work is over and a "pick-me-up" is 

 needed — the traveller finds the wine is kept in such a foul cask, that 

 when drinking it he must hold his nose to prevent the stink making 

 him sick, and swallow the stuff at a gulp. Still it is good wine. 

 Take Scylla as a typical hunting ground. From the station there is 

 a most arduous climb of three to four hours up a narrow track in a 

 gorge, in places washed entirely away, and then it is necessary to 

 negotiate a mass of rocks and stones forming the torrent bed, the 

 last hour through woody scrub, almost impassable in places. On 

 the top of the hill a road is met with just before the wood ends, 

 which serves the little villages on the plateau and leads nowhere, 

 and it has no connection Avith the station down below. There are 

 six inches or more of dust on the road which the tmy ox carts 

 plough through and raise up in clouds. For more than a mile this 

 road provides a shelter for pracida, with occasional turrica, which 

 congregate here in larger numbers than I have seen elsewhere. 

 Close by are meadows which provide the necessary food-plant. 

 When resting on the leaves of the undergrowth, procida is a black 

 butterfly, but when disturbed the underside gives it a much whiter 

 appearance than we expect. At intervals along the road tall eossiis- 

 eaten trees attract crowds of Vanessa to the sap, and a collector has 

 a lively time. 



Upon crossing over to Sicily the entomologist discovers that 

 (jalathea is of large size, some of the females extending to 60 centi- 

 metres. These specimens resemble a form which occurs in Algiers 

 and has received the specific name of lucasl or iiuiurf tunica. Mr. 

 Rowland-Brown has compared the two forms and has arrived at 

 the conclusion that they are identical. Zeller named his specimens 

 taken at S_yracuse — syracusana, and therefore I should suggest the 

 name siciUana for the Sicilian form of (jalatlwa, though I think the 

 specimens vary a little in every gorge, where they occur in that 

 island. 



Melanargia lachesis. 



I next turn to M. lacliem's. I have exhibited onf good variety of 

 (jalathea taken in Kent by myself in 1875. It was figured by 

 Newman in the "Entomologist" of 1877, described by my old 

 neighbour, C. G. Barrett, in his " Lepidoptera," figured by Mosely 

 of Huddersfield in his "Aberrations" (?), 1869, and Oberfchiir says 

 he has seen similar vars. on the continent, and has given it the name 

 " 7)ii)sleyi," which I consider a meaningless one. I should prefer it 

 to be called var. lachesis. In my specimen, the central black blotch 

 is missing on all the wings. In typical lac/iesis this blotch is small 

 on the forewings and missing on the hindwings and the basal black 

 blotch is reduced to shading. Oberthiir tells us that he knows 

 that in the parts of France where lachesis occurs, (jalathea is not 



