306 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



chalk-down. Probably I should have never discovered the little 

 El Dorado for butterflies I am going to describe had I not 

 read the delightful preface to M. Oberthiir's ' Lepidopterologie 

 Compar6e,' fasc. iii., in which he draws a sunny picture of the 

 country to the south-east of the former royal city, towards 

 which we set our faces on the morning of June 30th— that is 

 to say, Mr. B. C. S. Warren and I. That we had initial diffi- 

 culties in discovering the way goes without saying. No one 

 among the hotel servants appeared to have heard of Puymoyen, 

 though that village is but a few kilometres beyond Angouleme, 

 while the only information I could gather as to the forest of Liver- 

 nant was that such a wood undoubtedly existed in the Gironde, 

 miles away, that being the native Department of the "boots," 

 who volunteered the information. At last, however, we got a 

 map on which Puymoyen was marked, but not one of the 

 otherwise excellent cartes geograj)hiques made mention of the 

 forest, and I came to the conclusion that the " boots " was right, 

 and that my memory of M. Oberthiir's description was at fault. 

 At all events, we never reached that particular locality, though 

 from after-information it is a fact that we were within a mile of 

 it in the Vallee des Eaux Claires ; consequently we missed what 

 is probably the best woodland hunting-ground in South-west 

 France, where of normal years a magnificent form of Melitcea 

 athalia disports itself, and Coenonympha oedipus — that illusive 

 butterfly of the south-western marshes — is common enough. 



However, we did manage to have an excellent day's collect- 

 ing, and as soon as we had left Angouleme well behind us, and 

 crossed to the long hill gradient on the opposite side to the 

 Riberac road, guided by the none too frequent finger-posts, the 

 sport began. This road at first slopes sharply upward, with 

 occasional chalk-pits, detached patches of bramble, and clumps 

 of marjoram. Hovering over the latter were many fine examples 

 of LyccBiia arion in all the bloom of their first beauty, with a few 

 rather worn Anthocera Jiippocrepidis. Over the common land by 

 the roadside Cupido minimus was very abundant — we had seen it 

 actually in the hotel garden at Poitiers the day before — while 

 Agriades thetis (bellargus), much to our disappointment, was in 

 the last stage of a decadent first brood. We had, indeed, 

 broken our journey to the south on its behalf, for Angouleme is 

 recorded as a habitat of the lovely female aberration, coclestis, 

 Obthr., and it looked very much as though we were destined to 

 have arrived too late on the ground. Other "blues " to the fore 

 were Polyommatiis icarus, magnificent males of Rusticus argus, 

 L. {(Bgon), while in the dwarf oak scrub which fringed the road 

 Strymon spini was flying in quantities and in the finest con- 

 dition, but varying only in size— a curious little dwarf male 

 I boxed measuring no more than the typical C. minimus. S. ilicis 

 occurred also singly, while the brown " skippers," Adopaa 



