THE ENTOMOLOaiST 



Vol. XLII.] NOVEMBEE, 1909. [No. 558 



SOME AUGUST BUTTERFLIES OF CANTAL AND 



LOZERE. 



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



Seen on tbe mai3, the country to the south of Mont Doy6, and 

 especially that withm the region of the mountains of Cantal, sug- 

 gests tempting ground for entomologists who wish to add to 

 their knowledge of the fauna of Central France — terra incognita, 

 it seems, alike to French and British collectors. In bygone 

 days one or two members of the Entomological Society of France 

 appear to have given some attention to the butterflies of Cantal; 

 and supplementary to Maurice Sand's excellent Catalogue I find 

 a list of captures made at le Lioran by M. Achille Guenee. 

 With this slight material before me I had intended to visit 

 the higher parts of the range in the early months of the 

 summer, but again a variety of causes conspired to keep me in 

 England until August was well in sight. The delay was doubly 

 vexatious. It deprived me of the companionship of Mr. R. S. 

 Standen, one of the pioneers of Continental butterfly hunting, 

 and also brought me to the appointed spot at a date when, as I 

 was presently to discover, the better part of the local butterflies 

 was over and done with. To stay more than a week in such a 

 promising-looking locality as le Lioran and actually meet with 

 no more than two members of the Lycsenid family is an experi- 

 ence without parallel in the several expeditions I have been 

 fortunate enough to make abroad in previous years. But it is 

 a fact that, apart from a single battered Lycana avion, I netted 

 no other "blue" there except Polyommatus alexis, and this very 

 rarely. 



I travelled from Paris on the night of the 29th of July, and 

 as I noticed on the return journey made by day, I had already 

 passed through some fine scenery, when I awoke at Viescamp- 

 sous-Jalles, the little junction where the main line to Figeac and 

 Toulouse is crossed by the central road connecting Clermont- 

 Ferrand and Bordeaux. Already the character of the country 



ENTOM. — NOVEMBER, 1909. Z 



