﻿56 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



THREE WEEKS IN THE HIGH PYRENEES. 



By H. Rowland-Brown, M.A., F.E.S. 



(Plate II.) 



The summer of 1911, entomologically speaking, appears to 

 have been remarkable in the Central Alps by reason of the 

 comparative scarcity of butterfly life. In the Pyrenees things 

 were by no means so bad as reported by our Swiss collectors, 

 though I cannot say that Lepidoptera were anything like as 

 abundant, with one or two notable exceptions, as I found them 

 in the same localities in 1905. The climate of the Hautes- 

 Pyr^nees is notoriously uncertain in the higher ranges ; settled 

 weather is scarcely ever experienced for any length of time, 

 and last July, though the sun blazed from a cloudless sky 

 throughout the month on the plains, we had none too much of 

 his majesty at Gavarnie. The tiresome cross-journey from 

 Eaux Bonnes via Pau, up to the last hour or two when we were 

 well on the road from St. Sauveur to Gedre, was insupportably 

 hot. But by the time we had come to the upper valley of the 

 Gave de Gavarnie the clouds had gathered round the higher 

 mountain peaks, and it was raining as we pulled up at last 

 before the Hotel des Voyageurs, to receive a most kindly welcome 

 from M. and Madame Vergez-Bellou. Here we remained from 

 the 13th to the 30th, Mr. A. H. Jones, Mr. G. T. Bethune Baker, 

 and, lastly, Mr. C. J. Wainwright swelling the entomologist 

 population, already represented by M. Charles Oberthiir and an 

 energetic party of young hunters ; while from Gedre presently 

 came M. Rondou, full of kind information and suggestions for 

 our explorations. I had, however, already some knowledge of 

 the country, and our first day was devoted to an Erehia hunt in 

 the high valley under the Pic d'Astazou to the left of the famous 

 Cirque. The clouds of yesterday had now dissolved, and it was 

 under a radiant blue sky and in bright sunshine that we mounted 

 the steep zigzag which leads up to the iris-covered slopes which 

 six years before had provided the finest collecting-ground for 

 me in the Pyrenees. Nothing apparently was changed. The 

 mule-path was as rough and broken as ever ; the humming 

 waters of the cascades on either side made music in our ears, 

 and the great purple iris swept in waves of delicate colour down 

 the mountain side as far as the eye could see. But a change 

 there was, and very much to our disadvantage ; for, whereas 

 these preliminary slopes swarmed with butterflies in 1905, 

 with the exception of one or two species nothing was now really 

 abundant ; while on the ground where I took so many lovely 

 Anthrocerids, not a single one did I see either on this or on 

 any one of the several subsequent excursions in this direc- 

 tion. Indeed, the Burnets were practically non-existent at 



