NOTES ON A BUTTERFLY HUNT IN FRANCE IN 1910. 9 



of this splendid Papilio no doubt is far more extended west and 

 north in France than the local catalogues suggest. Mr. Warren 

 tells me that he saw several from the train windows far north of 

 Serres on the Digne-Grenoble line. 



Very little rain fell during the whole time we were at Digne, 

 but there was nearly always a high gusty wind, and at the com- 

 mencement of our stay a disagreeable preponderance of cloud. 

 And just as we arrived in a storm, so I left in a downpour, 

 accompanied by thunder and lightning, the rain lasting right up 

 to Clelles (Isere), my next stopping- place, and the night so cold 

 that it might have been early spring instead of the height 

 of the calendar summer. Grey and black, indeed, was the 24th, 

 and so discouraging the outlook, that I did not take my net with 

 me when at length I made up my mind for an afternoon walk. 

 But the unexpected happened of course, and crossing a heap of 

 stones covered with flowering-plants, I put up a magnificent 

 black variety of M. parthcnie — so black that I thought at first it 

 must be an Erehia. I had my hat off in a minute ; actually got 

 it over my parthenic, and was just boxing it when a terrific puff 

 of wind blew hat, pill-box, and butterfly out of my hand, and I 

 saw the latter borne swiftly over a deep precipice ! And that 

 was about the only insect I saw on the wing that day, though 

 there is plenty of good collecting ground all up the western 

 valley, which opens on the railroad and the lower levels some 

 little distance in the direction of Grenoble. 



The next day being still cold but fine, I decided, therefore, to 

 try over the same ground on the very off-chance as I thought of 

 a similar encounter. To this extent I may count myself fortu- 

 nate, for, at the very spot where I had missed parthenie the day 

 before, I took the self-same specimen — recognized by certain 

 rubbings of the wings ; and on the way back, a couple of hours 

 later, another almost identical, but absolutely perfect, suggesting 

 that hereabouts a race of " black" parthenie was established, of 

 almost the form which I find named and exquisitely figured 

 (' Lepidopterologie Comparee,' fasc. iv. plate xliv.) by M. C. 

 Oberthur as ab. rlioio, Obth. And in this connection I may add 

 that I have yet another but much smaller example, apparently 

 a like aberration of M. parthenie var. varia, M.-D., which was 

 taken by me when collecting with my friend INIr. C. J. Johnson 

 at the top of the Simplon Pass in July, 1907 — another very 

 fine dark aberration from the same ground being referable, I 

 think, rather to M. aurelia. A few typical parthenie were also noted 

 on the outskirts of the woods which were carpeted with Melam- 

 pi/rum in full flower, and with them not a few males of Polijom- 

 matus damoti and Clirysopliamis uirgaurece ; the road attracting 

 Satyrus circe, and the steep shaley banks Parnassius apollo and 

 Ercbia stygne, with occasional E. ligea. 



But this was the last day of my collecting abroad for the 



