JOURNAL OF VARIATION. 



Vol. XXVI. No. 1. January 15th, 1914. 



A Visit to Le Lautaret. {With two jjlates). 



By Dr. T. A. CHAPMAN, F.Z.S. 



It is many years since I paid my first short visit to Le Lautaret, 

 and was then much impressed with the remarkable character, both as 

 to flora and fauna, for which it is celebrated. My memory serves me, 

 however, but badly as to details, and all I clearly recollect is finding 

 cocoons and imagines of Heteroi/i/nis pendla, which I had previously 

 supposed to be near its limit as to combined North Latitude and 

 elevation at Digne. It occurs, however, in the Vosges, at, I believe, 

 comparatively low levels. 



I visited Le Lautaret again in 1905, along with Mr. Champion, we 

 staj'ed there a week and got about a good deal, yet had a couple of 

 days' experience of what Le Lautaret could be like in the height of its 

 summer, the thermometer fell to 41" as a day temperature with rain 

 and wind, and for this couple of days the only way to keep warm was 

 to get under the bed-clothes. On my visit this j^ear I was favoured 

 by fine summer weather for nearly the whole fortnight of my stay. 



There are many references to Le Lautaret in our Magazine, but 

 the only account in any detail is that by Tatt, in vol. xiii., p. 253., 

 and in vol. ix., p. 13. There is a passing reference to it by Mr. 

 Pearson, in vol. xxiv., p. 97, but he seems to have been scared by the 

 hotel accommodation there, though one judges from his tale that he 

 went further and fared worse. As a matter of fact, Le Lautaret 

 Hospice gives fair entertainment, and though not perhaps affording all 

 the heart can desire, it compares not unfavourably with the Swiss 

 hotel of 30 or 40 years ago, which one always found so satisfactory 

 when on a walking tour. 



The remarkably abundant and luxuriant vegetation here took Mr. 

 Tutt's attention, as it must do that of all who take even a mere ramble 

 near the Col. One is inclined to say that one finds here all the alpine 

 plants of Switzerland, especially of Western Switzerland, with many 

 others, and such a statement would not be so far from the truth as 

 might be at first sight supposed, and one is struck to find growing side 

 by side many plants that one has only seen before far away from each 

 other. 



Whether the agricultural (or pastoral?) arrangements of the district 

 have been arranged to suit the remarkable plant growth, or whether 

 the latter has been conditioned by the farming arrangements, they 



