﻿THE ENTOMOLOGIST 



Vol. XLV.] APEIL, 1912. [No. 587 



A COLLECTING TRIP TO THE CAMARGUE AND 

 THE SIERRA ALBARRACIN. 



By Kenneth J. Morton, F.E.S. 



(Plate III.) 



On July 2nd last I joined my friend Dr. Ris, of Rheinan, 

 at Lyons, our destination being Aries, in the Douches du Rhone, 

 which we reached early on the same day. In selecting Aries as 

 the starting-point of a collecting trip which we had long planned, 

 we had the belief that the Rhone delta would prove an excellent 

 locality for Odonata, while we had also the idea that the chain 

 of les Alpines might yield us a good Ascalaphid or two. We 

 had even a faint hope that Macromia splendens, one of the least 

 known, and accordingly one of the most interesting, of our 

 European dragonflies, which apparently has not been taken at 

 all in quite recent times, might be met with. Of these beliefs 

 and hopes only the first was realized. The waters around Aries 

 proved most productive of Odonata, but we did not see Macromia 

 splendens at all, nor are we able to explain why we did not do 

 so. Whether we were too far east, the character of the waters 

 was unsuitable, or the season still too early, we are unable to 

 say. The two recorded localities are Montpellier, in the not 

 far-off Department of the Herault, and Jarnac, in the Charente ; 

 and probably we should have fared better had we tried one of 

 these known localities. But my own feeling is that we were 

 perhaps too early, as Williamson, in his excellent paper on the 

 North American species of Macromia, states that on the Wabash 

 River these magnificent insects appear on the hot days at the 

 end of July and early August, when most of the other species of 

 summer dragonflies have passed away — a state of things which, 

 as the list that follows will show, had not yet come to pass at 

 the time of our visit to Aries. 



Our first attempt at collecting was made at the canal just 

 outside of the town, and on most of the days that followed we 

 spent a few of the morning hours profitably in the same place. 

 Here we met with some of the niost interesting small species in 



ENTOM. — APRIL, 1912. K 



