322 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



NOTES ON A BUTTERFLY HUNT IN FRANCE 



IN 1910. 



II. — In the South-East. 

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



(Continued from p. 303.) 



Leaving Samoussy on June 27th, and travelling by Laon, 

 we took the night express from Paris for Lyons and the south, 

 arriving at the junction of Pierrelatte about eleven o'clock 

 of such a clear blue day as we count upon in the Midi at this 

 time of the year. With three hours to wait for the Nyons 

 " parliamentary," we were glad to take our dejeuner under the 

 oleander- shaded verandah of the little inn which seemed for the 

 nonce to be tenanted chiefly by flies ! Later in the day we 

 completed the last stage of a decidedly long journey, and 

 covered the remaining twenty miles or so in about three hours ! 

 The afternoon heat was terrific, and, as the coaches are in- 

 variably shunted in the blazing sun, ours was suffocating with 

 its low-down roof, against which the head of my companion 

 was continually brought in contact. Prospecting a new line 

 of country, however, is always an agreeable occupation, ento- 

 mologically speaking, and as we approached the limestone 

 stone hills — the far-flung outposts of the Central Alps — we saw 

 our first Satyrids — plenty of them — males of Satijrus hermione, 

 and S. circe flying by the side of the railway, and had we been 

 so minded I do not think a descent from the train in motion 

 would have left us too far behind to resume our seats after 

 a leisurely bottling of such examples as we might have wished to 

 secure ! But it was the true Midi — that was some consolation — 

 with its almond trees, grey slanting olives, and burnt-ochre 

 fallows : its white villages sheltered by hedges of laurestinus 

 and tamarisk, with here and there the lofty spires of funereal 

 cypress piercing the universal blue. Dry watercourses and 

 stunted forests of ilex-oak, with tufts of lavender still unflowered, 

 suggested also the southerness of the department of the Drome, 

 though I was quite unprepared for the further proof of this we 

 were presently to experience among its butterflies. 



Nyons is a very old-world picturesque town built in a sword- 

 cut in the surrounding hills where the Eygues has cleft a way 

 through from the mountains to the wide valley of the Rhone. 

 Our most comfortable Hotel-Colombiers at some time of remote 

 history had been evidently a castle or a monastery, with its 

 vaulted rooms and three-foot walls of solid stone. On the front 

 it opened upon the public square, where until far into the night 

 a company of strolling players screamed through interminable 

 dramas, which never failed to draw good " houses," largely due 

 to the fact that the majority of seats, being alfresco, were free ! 



