188 



THE ENTOMOLOGIST S RECORD. 



the last five years at any rate, and M. Oberthlir thinks that it is as 

 extinct in that part of France as it is in England. Before asserting 

 that, I should like to have another try, for there are many marshes 

 which I had not the time to explore. It does still occur in the Aube, 

 I believe, but of course it would be less interesting in that Department 

 than in the Aisne and Somme, where the conditions are more English. 

 The Bordeaux specimens are, I think, real riitiliis. 1 called on an old 

 lady at St. Quentin, who had about forty specimens taken by her 

 husband fifty years ago in the Eouvroy marsh. Many were without 

 antennae, but the colours were very bright. They looked to me rather 

 smaller than English dispar, and perhaps a little larger than German 

 rutilus, but not very much. 



In the forest near Laon, when the weather would let me, I took 

 Nelitaea maturna, M. aurelia, M. dictynna, and Brenthia ino, besides 

 Paran/e achine and other more ordinary things ; but for days on end 

 it rained. 



Then I came back to Hyeres, to start almost at once for the 

 Pyrenees Orientales, staying a day and a night at the Pont-du-Gard en 

 route. The weather was just clearing up when I reached Vernet-les- 

 Bains. I found the snow still thick on the mountains above 2,000 

 metres, but warmth set in at the time. M. Eene Oberthiir arrived a 

 day or two afterwards and we did some good work. We collected 

 sometimes together, but I often left him for ten days at a time to camp 

 high up on the mountains, whilst he collected in the lower valleys. 

 I got good series of most of the genus Erehia, which are to be found 

 in these parts, E. evias, E. styf/ne (very large), E. epijihron v. cassiope, 

 E. tyndarus, E. lefebvrei v. pyrenaica, E. enryale, and E. neoridas. 

 E. yorye was rare, and so were Latiorina orbitidus, and Aricia donzelii. 

 I did not get many Hepialns pyrenaicus, a species which should have 

 been common. The yellow dusted form of Odezia atrata was 

 abundant. Colias phicomone and Brenthis pales were fairly common 

 in places, and Anthrocem exulans often swarmed. The females of this 

 last species are not yellow-veined and dusted in this locality as they 

 often are in the Basses Alps. I took two specimens in which the red 

 spots of the fore- wings made one sufiused blotch. There were plenty 

 of Melitaea aurinia v. merope and I captured a long and very variable 

 series. After August 15th, I did very little day collecting, but put 

 in plenty of night work, first in the mountains and then lower down. 

 I went into the Ariege for a fortnight ; a much greener, damper 

 country than the Pyrenees Orientales, but did not get much there. 

 Returning to the latter locality, I went on with the night collpcting 

 until October 15th, at St. Paul de Fenouillet, Elne, Collioure, Port 

 Vendres, and Ille. M. Oberthiir says some of the species of the genera 

 Acidalia and E npithecia were very good, but I do not know what the 

 species were. There were plenty of Noctuids, too, Apamm dvmerilU, 

 Ayrotis vestiyialis (?), Leucania extranea, Ayrotis constanti, Poliaveniista, 

 heliophobus hispidus, Coswia nlicis (new to France), Anophia levcowelas, 

 Catocala optata, etc. Some of the mountain Noctuids were new to 

 the Pyr. Or. I came back to Hyeres on October 17th, and after six 

 months of open air life it goes very much against the grain to be shut 

 up there. 



