THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



surely the ** palaearctic " collector turns his steps towards the 

 pretty little capital of the Basses-AljDes. I myself have visited 

 Digne on six separate occasions during the past eleven years, 

 hut, curiously enough, this was the first July I ever spent there. 

 Early April, mid-May, and mid-June, twice in August, and once 

 even in October — these are my seasons, and as it had always 

 been a case of ^'semper aliquid nori " in the past, so I looked 

 forward to turning up something new again this year, 

 especially as I was to spend considerably over a fortnight on the 

 lavender-grown valleys, and upon the hot hills which surround 

 the town. 



We arrived at Digne in as heavy a thunderstorm as I ever 

 remember to have encountered, the rain descending tropically ; 

 the night decidedly cool and pitch dark, and it was not until I 

 threw open the shutters of my favourite room in the " Boyer- 

 Mistre" next morning that I realized the surprises were not 

 to be altogether entomological! The splendid plane avenue, the 

 delight of so many summer evening's shade, had been shorn of 

 its magnificence ; the upper branches levelled with the house- 

 tops, and the trunks left hopeless and forlorn ! But the sky was 

 clear, and municipal zeal had not extended itself to reforming 

 the characteristic odours of the "Rue de Paradis" and the other 

 crabbed alleys which lead to the Dourbes and the Eaux-Ther- 

 males roads. Yet here was another unwelcome spectacle. The 

 garden espaliers, normally laden with fruit, were almost empty ; 

 the long lines of walnut trees covered with the charred fes- 

 toons sered by a late phenomenal May frost — the cause of 

 havoc to crops, orchards, and vines throughout the district, 

 and, as we were soon to discover, to the insect life and wild flora 

 as well. 



With regard to emergences, everything appeared to be topsy- 

 turvy. The earlier warm weather of spring had apparently 

 brought out half a brood, leaving the other in abeyance until 

 July. Some of the usually butterfly-haunted spots round Digne 

 for several days produced next to nothing except shoals of Riis- 

 ticus argus (cegon), of which I had actually a full-fed larva at 

 the time I was taking perfectly fresh males and females, both 

 sexes, as with other butterflies, appearing simultaneously. 

 On July 7th, in the Eaux-Thermales Valley, males of Papilio 

 alexanor, which in 1899 was out in the second week of 

 June, were still quite fresh, this species, with Parnassius 

 apollo, also in fine condition, practically constituting our bag 

 that day ; the wind being high and the temperature anything 

 but suggestive of the southern summer. Remarkable also 

 was the scarcity of Anthrocerids. Usually abundant in the 

 abandoned vineyards and garrigues at the back of La CoUette, 

 on the 8th they were conspicuous only by their absence, and 

 although we spent the whole of a fine warm morning there, 



