298 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



fusion of butterfly life at this particular central spot of France, 

 which in so many respects preserves the characteristic flora and 

 fauna of the Midi. In the earher weeks of the summer I have 

 no doubt that it would well repay my " palfearctic " friends who 

 spend their holidays each year in the better-known departments 

 of the south and south-east to investigate Lozere, and in the last 

 nine years the lines of approach have been greatly extended. 

 Mende, then but to be reached by the tortuous, dilatory trains 

 of the west, is now in direct touch with the P. L. M. from 

 la Bastide, on the Paris-Nimes line. Florae has been linked 

 up by a new branch of the same line from St. Cecile d'Andorge, 

 and will benefit immediately by the new clean hotels which 

 have, I understand, superseded the unclean hostelries of a 

 more primitive era. Eecognizing, therefore, that the season 

 was now far advanced, and anxious to maintain a decent altitude 

 in consequence, on August 6th I took train for Mende, en route 

 passing over the Garabit viaduct, once famous as possessing 

 the longest span 'of any bridge in Europe. With every hour 

 thence the landscape took on some pleasant feature of the south ; 

 the volcanic soil disappeared, and presently in its place the 

 cuttings and little hills displayed the unmistakable limestone 

 formation dear to the heart of the entomologist. 



After the cool, unproductive green country of Cantal, the 

 change to the limestone hillsides of Lozere was welcome indeed. 

 For the slopes of the Gausses, however barren and wind-swept 

 the plateaux themselves, are a feast of colour and flowery 

 luxuriance where they fall to the valleys. As I have so often 

 observed elsewhere in the higher alpine regions of Central 

 Europe, the most favourable haunts for butterflies are the deep 

 inset gullies which reach as a rule from summit to foot of the 

 escarpments, and in spring, when the snow melts, are the water- 

 courses by which the upland levels are drained, and the torrents 

 carried off from the mountains. On the cloudless, still August 

 morning of the 7th the lavender was in full bloom, the air 

 musical with the sound of myriad insects, and every spire of 

 fragrant bloom alive with countless butterflies — the rearguard for 

 the most part of the seasonal broods. Occasional small forests 

 of Austrian fir have sprung up, testifying to the skill of the de- 

 partment which is working with such success to reafforest the 

 dry uplands of France, while here, there, and everywhere grows 

 a species of liJiamnus which serves for Gonopteryx cleopatra and 

 G. rhamni — taken together on the 9th — one male only of the 

 former, and a female which might have belonged to either species; 

 the male of rliainni being decidedly common on this and suc- 

 ceeding days. AntJujUis, the great white Medicago, and in- 

 numerable PapiUonacece, seldom seen upon the volcanic formation 

 at le Lioran, all suggested Lycsenid visitants, as well as the 

 cytisus and laburnum trees, now laden with red-green pods. 



