SPRING LEPIDOPTERA IN ITALY. 139 
the ubiquitous M. stellatarum. In the Cascine, the fashionable 
park of Florence, L. argiolus and V. egea were flying in pro- 
fusion round the bay trees; but, oddly enough, during the five 
weeks I was in Italy, I never once came across a hybernated 
specimen of V. uwrtice; and on one occasion only at Rome (on 
the Palatine) did I see V. to. I amused myself one day, when 
visiting the picture galleries, with studying the Lepidoptera of 
the Old Masters. Butterflies, however, play a very insignificant 
part, even in the still-life pictures of the Dutch school. Among 
the Italians I could find no single painting of any moth or 
butterfly, though in one of the monasteries, I think it was at 
Certosa near Florence, I saw a very passable A. atropos done 
upon the wall of one of the cells. Ruysch Rachele occasionally 
introduces V. atalanta, P. brassice, and even EH. cardamines ; and 
in a Van Huysum I discovered a really fine P. napi. In Rome, 
the most favoured locality for Lepidoptera was the Palatine hill, 
which is a perfect garden of flowers, wild and cultivated. The 
slopes are covered with giant fennel plants, where I was not 
surprised to find (April 16th) P. machaon in abundance, together 
with P. megera and C. pamphilus, and literally hundreds of 
G. rhamni and “the whites.” It was not, however, until I went 
to Tivoli that I realized the full richness of the Italian insect- 
fauna. In Hadrian’s villa (April 22nd), for the first time in my 
life, I gazed upon P. podalirius on the wing, evidently just 
emerged, and in the most perfect condition. With the help of a 
Kodak camera I was able to take away my first impressions of 
this insect in a very practical manner. In the woodland glades, 
P. egeria was to be seen with V. c-album, N. lucina, and one or two 
L. duponcheli, a very teeble flyer, yet hardly ever settling. In the 
sunny brakes that cover much of the palace of the Cesars, 
T. rubi, G. cleopatra, P. machaon, E. cardamines, and the spring 
fritillaries, A. selene, A. euphrosyne, and A. dia, together with 
.C. pamphilus, might have been taken in any quantities, but 
having no apparatus with me I could only watch and admire the 
countless hundreds of insects that passed before my eyes. Of the 
wild flowers it would be impossible to speak with too much 
enthusiasm ; but to the English eye the simultaneous appearance 
of what, with us, are spring and midsummer flowers respectively, 
is, to say the least of it, rather confusing. 
As I said before, these are only hasty jottings, but they may 
prove of interest to readers of the ‘ Entomologist’; and anything 
that may help to induce our native collectors to disregard their 
insularity, and extend the field of the observations and operations 
to the wider study of European Rhopalocera, must be of service. 
Perhaps, therefore, a word of advice will not be out of place to 
the innumerable tourists who are attracted every spring to 
Italy and the Riviera; and that is, take your collecting-boxes 
with you. 
