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A BUTTERFLY HUNT IN THE PYRENEES. 

 By H. Rowland-Brown, M.A., F.E.S. 



The Pyrenees have received from collectors of Palfiearctic 

 RhoiDalocera but scant attention of late years as compared with 

 the Alps of Central Europe. The fact is the more remarkable, 

 because the range is quite as accessible as the remoter regions 

 of Switzerland and the Tyrol, while many years' experience of 

 the latter as a touring entomologist leaves no doubt in my mind 

 that for convenience and accommodation the advantage is all 

 with the Pyrenees. A month in July and the early days of 

 August, commencing at Le Vernet in the east and terminating 

 at Biarritz in the west, has left a wholly satisfactory impression 

 of comfortable hotels, clean and well found beyond anything 

 that can be procured at the price in the Alps, though there 

 is of course this disadvantage, that they are situated for the 

 most part on the lower levels ; not dotted about among the higher 

 elevations within easy reach of alpine fauna. With the exception 

 of the town of Andorra, which is not French and indescribably 

 primitive and dirty, I can recall no single halting place where 

 the kitchen and menage generally were not sufficient and for the 

 most part admirable. Then, again, it is a pleasure, after col- 

 lecting in less favoured mountain places in the Cevennes and 

 parts of Southern Austria, to come upon localities where species 

 are represented not "in single spies, but in battalions." The 

 uplands, in fact, as well as the fertile valleys, simply teem with 

 insect-life in summer, and I found this the case wherever I went 

 during the little expedition which I propose to describe. 



Unlike the greater part of France, the departments included 

 in the Pyrenean region have been well, worked by French ento-, 

 mologists. M. Ch. Oberthur, in his 'Etudes,' has figured and 

 described numerous local forms of butterflies and moths found by 

 him during many years' systematic and local collecting ; while 

 M. Rondou — " instituteur-naturaliste " and schoolmaster of 

 Gedre in the central area — has collected and reprinted from his 

 series of records, published in the * Transactions ' of the Linnean 

 Society of Bordeaux, a full and accurate catalogue of the Macro- 

 Lepidoptera, which I found invaluable as a guide wherever 

 I went. Then Mr. H. C. Elwes, in the ' Transactions ' of the 

 Entomological Society of London, published a comprehensive 

 list of the butterflies in 1887 ; but I do not find in our magazines 

 any detailed notices of recent date, and hope therefore that my 

 own experiences may prove useful, and induce others to follow 

 in my footsteps. 



Arriving on July 9th at the Hotel du Pare, Le Vernet, after 

 a not unpleasant journey via Toulouse and Perpignan, collecting 



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