LEPIDOPTERA OF LA SAINTE BAUME, VAR, S. FRANCE. 17 
marked. M. parthenie was in its last stage of tattered garments. 
On the 24th Limenitis camilla was not infrequent on the road 
descending to Nans, and G. cleopatra (females) and Satyrus 
alcyone first appeared. On June 25th I made across the plateau 
in the opposite direction to climb the Col de Bretagne. I 
afterwards found that there is a much better path and much 
better sport by the forest under the mountains. All the way 
insects were most abundant. In one or two openings, or little 
meadows, which slope southwards from the edge of the wood to 
the plateau, I saw, I think, a greater number of butterflies than 
I have ever seen in an equal space—not excepting Swiss locali- 
ties. LL. camilla was specially noticeable. I have often seen 
L. sybilla in flocks, but never before camilla, though the latter 
is, I should say, a more widely distributed species. 
At the top of the Col, just under the perpendicular mass of 
the Pic de Bretagne, Polyommatus escheri was well represented 
by strikingly fine specimens of both sexes. One female shot 
with blue was the first I have seen of this form. I sent it to 
Mr. Wheeler, who informs me that ‘“‘ this slightly blue form of 
female escheri is stated by Turati to be cominon in the Alpes 
Maritimes.” Mr. Wheeler further says that there is another 
form about as blue as corydon ab. semisyngrapha; this has been 
named subapennina by Turati, and is not very scarce on the 
lower slopes of the Apennines; and that he himself has taken 
one such at Fiesole, which he exhibited before the Entomological 
Society, London, in 1909. These, I suppose, are comparatively 
newly noted varieties, as I find no allusion to any blue forms of 
the female either in Staudinger, Ruhl, Wheeler, or the new 
editions of Spuler’s or Berge’s ‘Huropean Butterflies.* P. 
eschert was to be taken all over the district, but it was on the 
Col that it evinced the greatest beauty of form. In this walk 
Pyrameis cardui was often to be seen, six and eight at a time. 
Agriades thetis (bellargus ? adonis?) was also there, both worn and 
in good order. The males generally large and of a deep blue, 
rather of the lilac tone of colour, and frequent among them 
ab. puncta, Tutt. Last year I had taken a very beautiful male 
hybrid, polonus, and hoped, but in vain, to renew my good 
fortune this year. A few ragged icarus were to be seen, and a 
* The Polyommatus escheri of the Bouches du Rhéne has a special 
form, and, though not so large as Andalusian examples, is generally larger 
than those found on the Central Alps. M. Oberthiir makes special mention 
of the female form (Lépid. Comparée, fase. iv. p. 214), to which he has given 
the name var. fouwlquieri, after M. Gédéon Foulquier, of Marseilles, who, 
with Dr. Siepi, has done so much to introduce lepidopterists to the fauna of 
this interesting region. I do not think either of them report the form 
analogous to syngrapha; but the “ slightly blue” form is not uncommon in 
the hill districts of the south-east. I have myself taken it at Nyons (Dréme), 
Allos (Basses-Alpes), and St. Martin-Vésubie (Alpes-Maritimes) ; and, in the 
words of M. Oberthiir, these, like var. fowlquiert, “ montrent prés du corps, 
des atomes bleus.”—(H. R.-B.). 
ENTOM.—JANUARY, 1914. Cc 
