AND DISTRIBUTE INSECT VARIETY. 13 



stand by an Englishman, has come under distinguished patronage. 

 Italy conjointly has dropped off some of that disagreeable prestige 

 for malaria and brigands, rendering the investigation of her fauna 

 the more possible : not that either for a moment is absent or sup- 

 pressed in the southern portion of the peninsula, although their 

 spheres are circumscribed. But with all these advantages and dis- 

 advantages, the poetic fields and classic ground of Italy probably 

 do not evince for our fly-catcher the charm they have manifested 

 in the case of the ai'tist and antiquarian. Old in civilisation, 

 the virgin coi'onet of deer-forest and brake has long fallen from 

 her brow. Here and there, it is true, as south of Pescara, his 

 heart will beat at the little stations with their oak copses and 

 sea cliff ; making twilight with rank and lush tangles of cisti, 

 vetches, and tall boraginous spikes ; inviting to rambles such as 

 may be found in remote nooks in the fairy south of our own 

 island. But otherwise Italia is emphatically an exotic garden, 

 a land of vine or olive, or a waste of waving grain; and 

 among such prodigality the weary collector may sit down, 

 wipe his brow, and sigh for the thread of Dsedalus. Even the 

 more open plain of Lombardy, with its methodical rows of 

 willow, over which a sea rippled in Tertiary times, is far less 

 tempting than the leafy gorges of the Tyrol and Rhone valley. 

 Indeed, all the more attractive butterflies seem to hold the Swiss 

 pastures and Sicilian high ground, where the glacial epoch, it is 

 said, left them. The bare-backed Apennines and fertile Mari- 

 time Alps are equally ignored by Italian savants ; a few varieties 

 of our northern favourites perchance grace Florentine gardens ; 

 and around Pisa, according to Rossi, you may just capture 

 enough Diurni to convince yourself you are abroad. 



Yet, if Southern Europe be comparatively poor in regard to 

 its insect fauna when compared with the virgin tropical bush, 

 those few of the bolder beauties it possesses, bathed in Levantine 

 air, have a two-fold charm of borderland, whether we draw the 

 line for place or time. Not only have we here the summer 

 Cicadse drumming among the boughs, but many other objects of 

 classic interest. The Golden Wasp {Scolia hortorum) yet lazily 

 wheels around the tufted fountain. The sacred Scarabsei, in the 

 ravines, yet roll their miniature globes, as the Egyjitians 

 imagined^ to procreate. The ants store up flower-seed against 



