298 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 
fusion of butterfly life at this particular central spot of France, 
which in so many respects preserves the characteristic flora and 
fauna of the Midi. In the earlier weeks of the summer I have 
no doubt that it would well repay my ‘ palearctic”’ friends who 
spend their holidays each year in the better-known departments 
of the south and south-east to investigate Lozére, and in the last 
nine years the lines of approach have been greatly extended. 
Mende, then but to be reached by the tortuous, dilatory trains 
of the west, is now in direct touch with the P. L. M. from 
la Bastide, on the Paris-Nimes line. Florac has been linked 
up by a new branch of the same line from St. Cécile d’Andorge, 
and will benefit immediately by the new clean hotels which 
have, I understand, superseded the unclean hostelries of a 
more primitive era. Recognizing, therefore, that the season 
was now far advanced, and anxious to maintain a decent altitude 
in consequence, on August 6th I took train for Mende, en route 
passing over the Garabit viaduct, once famous as possessing 
the longest span of any bridge in Europe. With every hour 
thence the landscape took on some pleasant feature of the south ; 
the volcanic soil disappeared, and presently in its place the 
cuttings and little hills displayed the unmistakable limestone 
formation dear to the heart of the entomologist. 
After the cool, unproductive green country of Cantal, the 
change to the limestone hillsides of Lozére was welcome indeed. 
For the slopes of the Causses, however barren and wind-swept 
the plateaux themselves, are a feast of colour and flowery 
luxuriance where they fall to the valleys. As I have so often 
observed elsewhere in the higher alpine regions of Central 
Europe, the most favourable haunts for butterflies are the deep 
inset gullies which reach as a rule from summit to foot of the 
escarpments, and in spring, when the snow melts, are the water- 
courses by which the upland levels are drained, and the torrents 
carried off from the mountains. On the cloudless, still August 
morning of the 7th the lavender was in full bloom, the air 
musical with the sound of myriad insects, and every spire of 
fragrant bloom alive with countless butterflies—the rearguard for 
the most part of the seasonal broods. Occasional small forests 
of Austrian fir have sprung up, testifying to the skill of the de- 
partment which is working with such success to reafforest the 
dry uplands of France, while here, there, and everywhere grows 
a species of Hhamnus which serves for Gonopteryx cleopatra and 
G. rhamni—taken together on the 9th—one male only of the 
former, anda female which might have belonged to either species; 
the male of rhamni being decidedly common on this and suc- 
ceeding days. Anthyllis, the great white Medicago, and in- 
numerable Papilionacee, seldom seen upon the volcanic formation 
at le Lioran, all suggested Lycenid visitants, as well as the 
cytisus and laburnum trees, now laden with red-green pods, 
