THE ENTOMOLOGIST 



Vol. XL.] NOVEMBER, 1907. [No. 534 



NOTES ON A SUMMER TOUR IN SWITZERLAND. 



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



(Plate V.) 



In a short paper dealing with a tour in Southern France this 

 May (antea, p. 149), I had good reason to deplore the continual 

 overcast weather which militated so strongly against success with 

 the butterflies of that region, and also the lateness of all such 

 species as actually were observed. I regret to say that I must 

 take up the parable again with much the same comment, for 

 though in Switzerland the weather from the middle of July 

 onward to the middle of August was as a rule sunny and warm, 

 the effects of a cold cloudy spring, continued right through to the 

 very eve of my arrival, told disastrously on the " bag " which 

 in an ordinary Swiss season should be large in comparison with 

 the more select captures of less well-known and ably worked 

 localities. It is nine years since I wandered in the Alps of 

 Switzerland, and great have been the changes in the interval. 

 Generally speaking, the whole aspect of the country has altered. 

 Numerous hotels have sprung up ; the remoter valleys are 

 seamed with narrow-gauge railways ; the Jungfrau line nears 

 completion, and another is already contemplated which shall 

 bring the Matterhorn in reach of the ordinary tourist. Entomo- 

 logically a great deal has been added to our knowledge of the 

 Lepidoptera. An industrious entomological society has come 

 into being in Geneva ; a sound handbook for British collectors — 

 Mr. George Wheeler's — has been published, and several resident 

 Englishmen, as well as many summer visitors, have concentrated 

 their attention not only on butterfly -hunting as a pastime, but 

 upon the interesting problems presented by the rich Alpine 

 fauna, and the earlier stages of many species which were practi- 

 cally unknown to contemporary writers. 



Remembering the abundance of butterflies in the early 

 nineties, and anticipating something of the same kind to fill up 



ENTOM. — NOVEMBER, 1907- Y 



