BUTTERFLY HUNT IN SOME PARTS OF FRANCE. 337 



Pyrameis atalanta, hardly anything else was flying. And here, 

 as everywhere else at Eaux-Bonnes, there was an extraordinary 

 dearth of " blues " and Melitreas, while I think the only brown 

 fritillaries we saw in our week's stay were Brenthis imles — one 

 or two on the rhododendrons at about 5500 ft. — a casual B. dia, 

 and very worn B. euphrosync. A few Cupido minimus and very 

 occasional Lyccena avion almost complete the list of Lycaenidffi 

 represented. Higher still, and immediately below the Col, we 

 began to find butterflies more plentiful. The shaly, rather 

 precipitous, walls on each side, covered in places with flowers 

 and grasses, but for the most part bare, suggested Erehia lefe- 

 bvrei, and we had already netted some rather worn E. lappona 

 var. sthennyo at the entrance to the ravine. The sunny side 

 soon yielded the rarer Erehia, and we spent the rest of the 

 morning balancing ourselves as best we might on the slippery 

 slopes of moving stones which are so dear to this warmth-loving 

 species. But the moment the sun was hidden by a cloud, they 

 disappeared like magic. My Eaux-Bonnes lefebvrei, contrasted 

 with those from Gavarnie, run rather larger as a whole, while I 

 can detect none in which the chestnut antemarginal band, so 

 pronounced in many of the Gavarnie examples, is at all deve- 

 loped. But lefebvrei is one of the most variable of insects, and 

 I have not enough material before me to determine whether the 

 obsolescence of the antemarginal band is a constant feature of 

 the more western examples. Among the rhododendrons also we 

 netted a few E. epiphron var. cassiope, Mr. Warren securing a 

 female with white ocellations, and several ab. nclamns, while a 

 single E. tyndarus var. cassioides, von Hohenw.* (dromus, Fabr.), 

 was evidently the forerunner of the seasonal emergence. The 

 only other butterflies, hereabouts, which could be called at all 

 abundant were some very large Gonepteryx rhamni, but to the 

 top of the Col, where we climbed for lunch and where there is 

 one of the very rare mountain springs, hardly a butterfly was on 

 the wing ; so that on each subsequent visit we did not trouble 

 to proceed further than the lefebvrei ground. It was here also 

 on the rock-strewn grass that I noticed a black and white 

 "skipper" — in our experience the only one met with in the 

 mountains hereabouts. Unfortunately I missed several, but 

 Mr. Warren was more successful, and bagged some half-dozen 

 of what, to our surprise, turned out to be Hesperia andromedce. 

 This is, I believe, the first publication in England of II. an- 

 dromedce as a Pyrenean butterfly t ; but on looking through 



'■^'- 'Balletin de la Soc. Lepid. Geneve,' vol. i. p. 215. 



f This statement requires some qualification. Since I wrote it I find 

 that I had overlooked a passage in Dr. J. N. Keynes's account of " Butterflies 

 in the Pyrenees in 190'J " (' Ent. Eecord,' vol, xxii. 1910, p. 109). lie says 

 that, collecting with Mr. G. L. Keynes at Gavarnie on July 9th, "we were 

 fortunate to take two specimens of what we believe to be Hesperia andro- 

 medce. . . . We do not remember seeing any previous record of thie 



