20 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



Papilio alexanor, five or six taken in hot ravines at St. Etienne, 

 but I could find neither Sesile montanum, nor the larvae on any 

 umbelliferous plant in August and September. I fancy the 

 drought drove the females a long way. P. machaon, common, 

 not worked. 



Parnassius apollo, very abundant. All June and beginning 

 of July the males and females were so stained rust-red as to be 

 useless. This is from the pollen of liliaceous plants — L. croce.um, 

 L. martacjon — and perhaps other flowers visited by the insects. 

 M. Lameere, the Belgian Professor of Zoology, is my authority 

 for this explanation of the rusty red discoloration of the under- 

 side of numbers of apollo in this region. Also, at Valdeblore, 

 M. Dumont in 1916 assured me it was a variety, and I then 

 thought it was merely a malady, or fungus, or from the soil or rock 

 amongst which the larva pupated. Has the microscope solved 

 the mystery and confirmed M. Lameere's theory? In mid- July 

 we found two larvae (? apollo), ?/e/Zo/t'-spotted, and smaller than 

 the orange-^^oiiQdi larva) ; these we kept on sedum. They spun 

 up and duly emerged in August, and are ahout the size of deliiis, 

 but superficially like apollo only whiter. I am not sure if they 

 are not distinct. P. delius, a few at wet snxifrages, but the 

 butterfly had dispersed, as later in the day a good number were 

 seen returning to the water from the mountain slopes. 



(To be continvied.) 



NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 



Invasion op the Eiviera by Pyrameis cardui. — We had an 

 extraordinary visitation, or invasion, of Pyrameis cardui in 1918 

 from May 5th to May 8th. It began on the 5th, and arrived at 

 Antibes, Cannes, etc., passing west along to Hy^res. There must 

 have been millions. I estimated 500,000 on my walk to Ranquin on 

 the 7th, and peasants at Mouans-Sartoux (reliable) told me that there 

 they passed over at a low altitude in a vast cloud, and that the hum 

 or rustle of their wings was extraordinary. My friend, M. Mannart, 

 witnessed this at Antibes ; unfortunately I did not see the cloud of 

 them, but the rearguards were everywhere in hundreds of thousands. 

 I noticed one on a patch of mud, with about a hundred others, no 

 larger than a small male Araschnia levana, but I could not take it 

 owing to the confusion. They w^ere like autumn leaves all that day, 

 and I had to give up collecting. I found many were almost fresh. 

 They were accompanied by numerous worn Plusia gamma. Mr. Harold 

 Powell wrote me that they arrived at Hy6res, and were then very 

 worn, and that the resulting larvae, finding insufficient food, took to 

 the artichoke fields, which they devastated entirely. At St. Etienne- 

 de-Tinee I took larvae on burdock, but all were ichneumoned except 

 two, and imagines were sparse during the autumn and late summer. 

 — C. B. Morris; Villa Chatelet, Le Cannet, Alpes-Maritimes, 

 November 12th, 1918. 



