NOTES ON THE BUTTERFLIES OF DIGNE. 223 



Cemetery, which those who know it will remember is a perfect 

 sun-trap, and where by ten o'clock the stony ground becomes so 

 hot one can barely place one's hand upon it, and having during 

 that time only caught one chipped female, I did not consider 

 that form of taking iolas good enough, and so adopted another 

 which I found was much less heating, more exciting, and withal 

 more productive of the butterfly in question ; and this was to 

 stand (more or less still) in an open gully or track, and intercept 

 them as they flew swiftly down the openings, which they seemed 

 to have rather a penchant for doing. In this way the time was 

 enlivened by catching an occasional Pararge moera or L. diqjon- 

 cheli as it fluttered past, and I was able to take six fine iolas in 

 very good condition ; but what interested me far more than 

 catching them was to find a full-fed larva feeding quite exposed 

 on a pod of Colutea arborescens, and attended by no fewer than 

 four large black ants, of what species I am afraid I do not know, 

 which were continually running backwards and forwards over the 

 larva, stroking or feeling it with their antenna, in order toget it 

 to exude a drop of the sweet mixture which, no doubt, in the 

 same way as Polyommatus hellargus or Lycana avion, it has the 

 power of doing. It appeared to feel no inconvenience from this 

 performance, and was lying basking on the half-eaten pod. The 

 larva was of a very pale yellowish-green colour, with a dark 

 pink or rose-coloured dorsal line, strongly defined towards the 

 head and tail, and lighter in the middle ; the subdorsal lines 

 were a much paler and less conspicuous pink, all three lines 

 being rather thickly spotted with minute black dots ; the head 

 was of a pinkish tinge, minutely spotted with black ; legs very 

 light greenish colour. This very rough description of the larva 

 was jotted down in my pocket-book when I found it, and, although 

 I had no means of exactly measuring it, it must have been 

 almost an inch in length, and was of a very slug-like appear- 

 ance. When I got back to my hotel that evening I found it had 

 already eaten its way into another pod of Colutea, and in this it 

 remained three days without coming out, the two ants which I 

 had put with it constantly going in and out of the hole in the 

 pod, though I could not see what took place inside. On the 

 third day the pod cracked and came open at one end, and I found 

 the larva had changed into a hghtish-brown pupa inside it. 



I was glad to find that Thais medisicaste, in spite of various 

 reports to the contrary, seems to be holding its own fairly well, 

 though it is an insect which for some reason is more collected 

 than anything else at Digne. Everyone appears to want a larger 

 series of medisicaste than of anything else; possibly its showy 

 upper side, which makes a long row look so well in one's cabinet, 

 has something to do with it ; but Monsieur Cotte, the professional 

 collector at Digne, assures me people are far more anxious to 

 secure un grand numero of medisicaste than of any other insect. 



