2B8 THE entomologist's kecord. 



the latter plant in places where M. Rondou told us L. orhitidus was 

 frequent or common, though on such a day, of course, none were in 

 evidence. In places this beautiful plant formed the greater part of 

 the vegetation, being more dominant than I have seen it elsewhere. 



We took another excursion with M. Rondoa to the Val d'Estaube, 

 on the 2-lth, a very interesting excursion, apart from the wish to see 

 L. pyrenaica in another locality. The valley of the Gave d'Heas drops 

 rapidly into the Gave du Pau et Gedre, but above this portion the slope 

 is more gradual. Some little way up M. Eondou pointed out a small 

 meadow of only an acre or two, on which he said Erehia caecilia was 

 usually to be seen, and there, in fact, we found three specimens. M. 

 Rondou was of opinion that that butterfly had no settlement there, 

 but arrived from the mountain above, where it was common, 

 descending (by accident or design) quite 2000 ft. (I have no exact 

 measurement) of nearly precipitous cliff. 1 felt a difficulty in under- 

 standing if this was so, how it always hit this little meadow and 

 nowhere else, and equally if it was native to the meadow, how it 

 could maintain itself in so small a patch without spreading elsewhere. 



I recollected, however, reading in some account of the species 

 (where, I forget), how at a certain hour of the morning, in one 

 of its localities (Cauterets ?), it suddenly put in an appearance, all 

 specimens progressing steadily downhill. 



The Val d'Estaube rises rather high up on the slope above the Gave 

 d'Heas, and thereafter rises gradually, with several steps, as usual, in 

 Alpine valleys, where no doubt the ancient glaciers had an icefall. 

 Some little way up the valley is a slope below limestone cliffs, and 

 here L. in/rcnaicavf&s found, but not so abundantly as M. Rondou says 

 it often is there. A butterfly not uncommon in the Val d'Heas, and 

 also in the Val d'Ossoue, and indeed elsewhere near Gavarnie, is 

 Pol>jo)innatiis (Agriade^s) escJieri, its best known foodplant, Atitrar/aliis 

 vionspessidaniis, being well distributed, especially in the calcareous 

 areas. The form of P. escJieil here, as is w^ell known, has not the 

 bold spotting of the underside so characteristic in localities in 

 Dauphiny and Switzerland, but is much in tone like P. icarus, culmi- 

 nating in the ab. and var. rondoai, in which the underside spots are 

 very small, and tending to obsolescence {Btdl. Soc. Knt. Fr., 1906, 

 p. 57), actually the Alpine form of escheri in the Pyrenees. On the 

 27th and the 31st we went to the Col du Pimene, whence one looks 

 down into the upper part of the Val d'Estaube and sees something of 

 the Cirque du Troumouse. On the way up Anthrocera antJu/llidis was 

 very abundant at a considerable elevation, though on the 27th the 

 weather was bad, and on the 81st they were getting the worse for 

 wear. On the first occasion Mr. Champion found various (more or 

 less good, I suppose) beetles, fairly abundant (weather dull, atmos- 

 phere damp) but on the second visit, only four days later, when con- 

 ditions were much more favourable for lepidoptera, the weather being 

 dry and warm, he was decidedly disappointed, and considered the 

 locality had not kept up its promise, and was no better than other 

 places visited on fine (but not for Coleoptera) days. Anthrocera con- 

 tanrhiei on my previous visit was not at all rare in several localities, 

 but on this occasion a desire to renew my acquaintance was not 

 cordially met, and I only saw two or three specimens. 



The little lakes or ponds on the east of the direct (high level) route 



