49 



Entomology with a Camera in Switzerland. 



By Hugh Main and K. G. Blair. 



(Descriptive of Lantern Slides exldhited January 8th, 1914.) 



In taking a three weeks' holiday in Switzerland last year, the 

 chief object of the authors was to secure a series of photographs of 

 natural history subjects, mainly of insects ; but it was no part of 

 their programme to form a collection of specimens of the fauna of 

 the district. They had, of course, certain leading ideas that they 

 wished to work out and develop, and with the varied success or 

 failure of these Mr. Main's lantern lecture on January 8th will have 

 made members familiar. 



Perhaps the primary object of the trip was to secure a series 

 illustrating the great variety of insect life to be found on the broken 

 rock-faces that form such a feature of the country ; another was to 

 illustrate the development of certain insects whose life histories 

 present features of exceptional interest, more especially those which 

 are not to be found in Britain ; in many cases we could not hope to 

 obtain anything like a complete series of studies in the short time 

 at our disposal, and it would be necessary to supplement the photo- 

 graphs of the creatures taken in the wild by numerous studies of 

 specimens secured and kept in captivity at home. 



We left home on June 4th, and arrived in Meiringen the next 

 day soon after noon. Our entomological observations began 

 considerably before our arrival at our destination, for about five 

 o'clock that morning, during the hour or two allowed for breakfast 

 in Basle, we wandered down to the Ehine, and found, on the 

 railings of the embankment, the empty nymph skins of a neuropteron 

 that was new to us. Later on, at Meiringen, the empty skins of 

 the same species were found in numbers along the walls of the 

 gorge of the Aar, but we were quite unable to find any of the 

 imagines that had emerged from them. A few days later, however, 

 we did find a pair, presumably of the same species, at rest on a rail 

 alongside the Reichenbach ; these we afterwards identified as 

 Perla )iia.ciiiia, a species that is also British, though frequenting the 

 mountain streams of the northern part of the kingdom, and not 

 found in our south-eastern counties. 



In our early days at Meiringen we were rash enough to undertake 

 long walks, carrying camera and impedimenta with us, and keeping 

 an eye open for "subjects" as we went along ; but a very little 



