202 THE entomologist's record. 



of p. amandus can admit of a shadow of doubt. With regard also to 

 Lycaena enpheiinis and L. orccn^, Favre and Wullschlegel, in their Macro- 

 lepidoptcres dn Valais, omit all mention of their occurrence, either in 

 that canton or in the neighbouring parts of Vaud, though this district 

 was well within the range of Wullschlegel's hunting-grounds, and was 

 well-known to Chanoine Favre also. To go further back still, none of 

 these three species were known from this locality to the indefatigable 

 Mr. Tasker of Yilleneuve, nor is there any previous record of them 

 among the almost innumerable articles which have appeared in the 

 different magazines on the butterflies of the Rhone Valley. C. tiphon 

 is certainly spreading — I found it last year in the St. Triphon marshes 

 where I have never seen it before, though my experience of that locality 

 began in 1897 or 1898. I was aware that it occurred in that end of 

 the Rhone Valley, as I took one spe3imen somewhere in the Bouveret 

 direction the first year I was in Switzerland, but never found another, 

 though I frequentl}' searched all round those parts. With regard to 

 P. apollo, it has occurred at Charpigny ever since I have known the 

 place, which was before I knew your uncle, but always singly, so that 

 caterpillars introduced there by him would be likely to establish them- 

 selves without difficulty." 



Lepidopterology. ■' 



It would be possible to say a great deal about these volumes that 

 has already been said about their predecessors, especially in regard to 

 the work of M. Culot. The plates, lithographed and drawn by him, 

 appear to be as near perfection as one can expect to meet with, though 

 M. Oberthiir regards the figures of .J^i/eriidae already executed for the 

 eleventh fascicule to be really beyond anything M. Culot has so far 

 produced. 



This leads one to think over M. Oberthiir's preface, which is placed 

 where prefaces ought to be, namely, at the end of Part 1, since prefaces 

 like this one usually consist of something the author wishes to say to 

 his readers, not before the work is begun, but after it is finished. It 

 is dated March, 1915, and relates how, in the previous May (1914), the 

 date "September, 1914" was printed on page 5 of the Title. The text 

 was finished in June, 1914, and was printed to p. 192. M. Culot had 

 dealt with the Fthopalocera and Sesiidae of Barbary, and had received 

 various Arctiidae and others with which to continue the plates. M, 

 Oberthiir then relates how he was at Gavarnie with various members 

 of his family, and was joined there by his grandson, Henri, and Mr. 

 Powell, who had been making an entomological exploration of other 

 portions of the Pyrenees, not forgetting some mountaineering as not 

 foreign to the supposed main object. M. Oberthur's love of the 

 mountains, of such a calm and peaceful centre as Gavarnie, finds 

 expression in his enthusiastic pictures of the glorious weather, the 

 abundant insects, the captures at the electric lights in the evenings, 

 his pleasure in seeing his old friends MM. P. Rondou and Henri 

 Posset, the latter of whom he had known for 45 years. All this is 

 pleasing and delightful, but, alas, there came suddenly, the sad and 



* Etudes de Lepidopterologie Comparee. Par Charles Oberthiir. Fasc. X., 

 Partie 1, Texte, pp. 459. Partie 2, Planches, 177. 



