A TRIP TO CORSICA AND THE ALPES MARITIMKS. 277 



A Trip to Corsica and the Alpes Maritimes {irith plate). 



Part II. — St. Martin Vesubie and Digne. 



By H. KOWLAND-BROWN, M.A., F.E.S. 



A good many entomologists have visited the beautiful valley down 

 which the Vesubie thunders through deep limestone gorges, or opens 

 out into pleasant intermediate relief of green meadows and fruit-laden 

 orchards. The French authors quote St. Martin Lantosque religiously 

 for half the insects to be taken in southern France ; Milliere is cited, 

 again and again, to show that the " hauteurs " above the village are the 

 haunt of butterflies which I, for one, have found rare enough. But 

 no English entomologist, as far as I can determine, has systematically 

 worked from the level of the Nice-Puget-Thenieis line to the Madone 

 de Fenestre, a distance, perhaps, of five and twenty miles, embracing 

 every sort and kind of scenery, from semitropical to high alpine, with a 

 corresponding variety of fauna. A week or ten days, even in July, 

 hardly offers sufiicient opportunity to grasp the real significance of 

 these different altitudes. The Vesubie season, however, lasts from 

 April to October, and fortunate is the naturalist who remains there 

 over the spring and summer months. After the rough hospitality of 

 Corsica, the flesh-pots of this agreeable summer-dependence of 

 Nice, are by no means a disadvantage. The Hotel Regina, where I 

 stayed, was not only reasonable in every way, but well found, clean, 

 and electric-lighted, with a sympathetic proprietor, whose English wife, 

 understanding our manners and customs, took heed for my British 

 propensities accordingly. I say this advisedly, because I fear in some 

 previous papers in this magazine I have, perhaps, not dwelt too intimately 

 on certain drawbacks of inn accommodation where I have sojourned 

 alone. Collectors have sometimes asked me how on earth I could 

 recommend them such and such a place, but I have generally found 

 that they went not unaccompanied, and that the difficulty has, in some 

 measure, arisen from my failure to differentiate the quarters suitable 

 to bachelors, and those more fortunate travellers than myself. On the 

 strength of a bath, bought by myself, I ventured to advocate the 

 attraction of a certain happy hunting-ground on the southern slope of 

 the Alps, and made a special point of the home-comforts there attain- 

 able. Alas ! the next of my countrymen to visit the spot, 

 announced my bath like the helmet of the worn-out man-at-arms, a 

 hive for bees or something worse, while it appears that lectures on 

 hygiene, delivered to a polite landlord, anxious for l^ritish custom, had 

 fallen on barren ground. May I sum up St. Martin Vesubie in four 

 words "no smells, no bells," and the virtue of the latter recom- 

 mendation will be understood by all who have stayed in early devo- 

 tional alpine villages, or sighed in vain for sleep beside the bell- 

 haunted, but otherwise delightful, shores of the Italian lakes. I find 

 that the desire for a particular insect draws one, eventually, to a 

 particular locality. This year it is Digne for Erebia epiMi/i/ne, the 

 next it is the Cevennes country for Pob/oinmatns (IoIks ; I believe it 

 •w&s Xoiiimdes y;/<?^«no^v.s which introduced metoHyeres, and it certainly 

 was Erebia ;ilacialis which sent me over the Stelvio to Trafoi and 

 the Ortler region. 



My friend. Dr. H. C. Lang, had mentioned Laeosaiiis rohorh in con- 

 nection with a visit paid by him to St. Martin Vesubie, and, remember- 



NovEMBER 15th, 1903. 



