SPRING Wl) VtlTUMN OTSSERVATTONS IN SOUTH-EAST FRANCE. 813 



in an interval of sunshine, vouchsafed during the two days' storm of 

 July 26th-27th. The greater part of the Pas de Calais is highly culti- 

 vated, but the chalky soil makes useful banks beside the roadsides, 

 and there are pleasant dingles with well-tended coppices of hazel, oak 

 and ash. In them, Dn/as papJiia swarmed with L. sihjjUa and 

 Leptidia sinopis, but, with the exception of a single Cliriji^ophamis 

 durilis, I saw no other than the species we might net in a day's walk 

 in any ' entomological ' wood on our own side of the water. This e7i 

 passant, and merely to suggest how, in a country husbanded to the last 

 acre, species which have long since disappeared from similar areas in 

 the United Kingdom, continue to hold their own, apparently 

 unaffected. 



My third departure promised a more interesting field, but once 

 again the note-book is chiefly filled up with what I expected to find 

 and did not. The start was anything but promising. Two days of 

 rain and cold preluded my arrival at Turin, the first week in October. 

 But the weather, at any rate, soon mended, and, coming from Cuneo 

 by the Col de Tenda to Ventimiglia, I was able to get some sort of idea 

 of the later butterflies of the Mediterranean coast. Both Colias ediisa 

 and C. Ityale were large, in perfect condition, and common below 

 Breglio ; one battered P. pndalirins, an almost indistinguishable 

 Paranje ntaeva, a few Epinepluie jnrtina, one Coenanijinpha arcania, 

 with the common Pierids, completed my observations. Now October 

 is t/ie wet month par excellence of the Riviera, and I was not aware of 

 the fact when I started. During a week spent at Beaulieu, October 

 8th-14th, I was, however, lucky to enjoy many fine exceptions to the 

 rule, and even when it rained the clearing was sudden and efiective — 

 pouring torrents at sunrise, brilliant summer, cloudless blue, at noonday. 

 Beyond the limits of the villa gardens, the grass and wild flowers of 

 these lovely clifls is all burnt up at this time of year. Great bushes 

 of a " golden rod," with woolly grey-green leaves, helped materially 

 to solve the universal grey, while the sheen of the olive and the ilex, 

 the changing vine leaf, and the glimmering orange groves are 

 a never-ending d.^light to the unaccustomed northern eye. A walk one 

 bright morning (October 9th) up that narrow cut in the hills known 

 as the Val Miierta to the Corniche road, high above— rather a memor- 

 able day, as I was emancipated from five weeks' foot bandages — 

 yielded the following list of observations, for I can hardly say I made 

 a bag at all : — P. pudalirinx, one very worn ; (t. clenpatra, one fine <? ; 

 Colias ednsa ; Chrysophaiuis p/dacas, in good condition ; also a diminu- 

 tive brood of L. icarns and one or two small L. bdlair/ns and 

 t'oenoiiijiiipha paiupliibis ; Pt/raiiieis cardui, vey commoa, in all 

 stages, Irjiu fresh primitiveuess to utter dilapidation ; Saffjrus ciire, 

 one ; Pobjunnia c-aibum and P. eijea, both fresh and active ; Pararge 

 mcgaera, males and females, just emerged ; P. er/erla, common 

 on ilex and where the clematis hung over the rock path, but by 

 no means confined to the shade, as I saw it constantly flying in 

 the sun upon the shore under the low wall, that is apparently 

 all the protection required against the tideless ocean. At the 

 Corniche elevation I netted a single broken 2 T.ampides hoeticiis, 

 and, among a heap of loose stones, at the highest and windiest point 

 overlooking the bay of Beaulien, I chanced upon quite a little colony of 

 Adopaea thaumas, bleached almost white by wind and sun. The 



