PUENTE DE LOS FIERBOS. - ^ 189 



Puente de los Fierros. 



By P. A. H. I.IUSCHAMP, F.E.S. 



Between my few lines about the fauna of Pajares and ]\Irs. Page's 

 delightful article on the Cantabrians (pp. 121 to 129) there is a hiatus, 

 a small elephant whose weight the lady author deemed meet to be 

 neglected — Puente de los Fierros by name — of which I think some 

 mention should be made, were it but to record the finding of Lensopis 

 roboris. We rode down (I on a blind mare) from Ptijares to los Fierros 

 to discover a possible lodging for Mrs. Page. The pigsties, charming 

 though they were, were wanting in many little vanities considered 

 indispensable by the fair sex, e.if., there happened to be no mirror, and 

 then too, those unshutable doors and ventilated walls through which 

 rats, mice, pigs and other small deer did freely circulate ! At Fierros 

 we found really excellent accommodation at the Station Hotel. The 

 food was good and almost European — only we had to wait for our 

 meals till the train came in ; if we were starving and begged very 

 humbly we were sometimes allowed to start on the soup, but had to 

 let possible travellers catch us up ere the second course w'as placed 

 before us. Fierros is charmingly situated from an artist's or an 

 entomologist's poiat of view ; we were, however, too late in the season 

 to do very much there, and though we followed the road down north- 

 ward for thirteen miles we found nothing to encourage us to continue 

 in that direction. 



On July 27th I saw a strange butterfly flying over brambles at the 

 foot of a huge boulder, and I netted a torn and ragged "blue" which 

 was all unknown to me. Overjoyed, I brought my catch to Mr. Page, 

 and asked him if this could be L. roborix ; my joy was indeed great 

 when I was answered in the negative. Later on in the morning Mrs. 

 Page and I perceived a second of these strangers flying about on the 

 rocks by the roadside ; a little scramble and a butterfly in pretty fair 

 condition was bottled. Two days later I took a third, and was quite 

 convinced that I had found a new "blue" ! All three were "hens" ; 

 dark brown butterflies with violet rays at the base of wings, the under- 

 side a yellow dusted brown with a broadish bright yellow marginal 

 border and blue arrowheads, Alas ! here at home my picture -booka 

 promptly showed me that I had but netted three L. roboria. Still, 

 I am sincerely grateful to those three ladies, for they taught me to feel 

 the delight of the discoverer of new worlds. Finally, it is well worth 

 noting that L. roboris is to be taken at Fierros. These three were last 

 survivors, evidently, and it is very probable that a few weeks earlier we 

 might have taken a goodly series. I do not remember seeing anything 

 resembling Fmxiitua excelsior in the neighbourhood, the nearest plant 

 to the ash was the privet ; these three $ s, however, haunted a heavy 

 bramble that was common all over the country. 



A pretty butterfly, of which I took but one specimen on the heather 

 slopes here, was Melitaea phnebe ab. inelaitina. The " blues " taken, in 

 a meadow by the stream, just a little down the north road, were Fjveres 

 anjiadesi, ('elastrina arriialiis, Aricia medon var. calida, Folyoinnmtus 

 icanis, a single large (ilaucopsyc/ie inelanops, Lampides boeticus, Laeosopis 

 roboris, some fine aberrations of Polyoiiimatus escheri, Ayriades thetis 

 (bellan/ux) ab. piincta, A. coridon var. albicans, Lycaena avion, and 



September 15th, 1915. 



