PAJARES. 121 



Pajares. 



By P. H. MUSCHAMP, F.E.S. 



On July 18th, 1914, the proprietor of The liecord and myself 

 stepped out of the train at the Itttle station of Pajares after a long but 

 rather amusing journey down from Paris. Pajares is a village in the 

 Asturian Cantabrians, on the watershed between the provinces of Leon 

 and Oviedo; it is 1364 metres above the sea level. This place is 

 known to entomologists as being the haunt of h'rebia palarica, the 

 largest and one of the most beautiful of its genus, a species found by 

 Dr. Chapman in 1904, and not retaken since then. The mean expanse 

 of wing of those he took is between 59mm. and 60mm., a 10mm. 

 greater expanse than /•>'. cvias, the giant among Swiss Erebias. Its 

 upper surface strongly resembles that of eviax, but the band on the 

 imderside of its hindwings is abundantly distinct from those of either 

 criaa or stj/tiue : its male genitalia are ver}' close indeed to the genitalia 

 of Kti/iine, although the shoulder of the clasp is bolder in the two 

 specimens which I have sacrificed to the microscope. The ova would 

 seem to be quite distinct according to Mr. Powell's notes on material 

 received from Dr. Chapman. Wishing to be in a position to examine 

 the genitalia of a number of palarica, and unsatisfied with those which 

 Dr. Chapman so generously sent me 10 years ago, I was right glad to 

 join Mr. Page in a palarica hunt. Right glad were we two to have 

 been able to get away from our homes so early in the summer, and it 

 was with hearts as joyous as the sun was bright that we reached the 

 station of Pajares an hour or two after sunrise. The village of Pajares 

 was invisible from the station, but we had Dr. Chapman's letter with 

 us which directed us to a " tienda " or village shop, where we were to 

 lind rooms over a pigsty ! Inquiries of the stationmaster elicited no 

 information respecting the proprietor of said pigsty, but a pale-faced 

 consumptive youth soon put us on what we supposed to be the right 

 track. He led us to the village, showed us the " tienda " in which he 

 himself was a guest, and we took a room over the pigsty facing the 

 " tienda " — the dependance of this " hotel ! " We have since heard 

 from Dr. Chapman that we should have stopped one station before 

 getting .to Pajares and sampled the pigsties there. It would seem then 

 to be a speciality of inns in this neighbourhood to have their guest- 

 chambers in close proximity to the " habilles de sole," a compliment I 

 was to learn to " properly appreciate " a few days later when our 

 imshutable door was pushed open in the middle of the night and two 

 "gentlemen" entered the room, and with many grunts began to investigate 

 my friend's valise, and, as my shouts neither disturbed the grunter's 

 activity nor my friend's slumbers, I was obliged to tumble out of bed 

 and drive them downstairs to their own flat ; we had paid for ours and 

 I wanted no other sleeping companion than Mr. Page, besides, 

 their conduct in nosing about his valise was absolutely indiscreet — 

 well, after all they were Spanish pigs, and discretion is a flower that 

 does not often grow in Spain, It is just possible that these useful 

 animals considered that we were not paying enough for our board 

 and thus had no right to our lodging. If this were so, there was 

 some excuse for them. In addition to our share of the sty we were 

 fed and excellently fed, better, I expect, than even our neighbours 



June I^th, 1915. 



