NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 153 



order to escape arriving at Messina at the inconvenient hour of 

 2 a.m., I broke my journey on the morning of May 16th at Cajanella 

 (pronounced Canella), a roadside station fifty miles north of Naples. 

 The village itself was very picturesque, nestling at the foot of an 

 isolated hill between higher hills. This hill was crowned with a 

 ruined castle and a roofless chapel, which reminded me of Corfe 

 Castle, Dorset, and I found there was a grand view (as at Corfe) from 

 the top across the plain. On the plain, farmhouses sheltered by 

 trees and bushes were dotted about, and nightingales were in full 

 song in broad day at each of them, while near the station hundreds 

 of house-martins had their nests in the eaves of an immense old 

 building, probably a former monastery. The main road was good, 

 but the lanes were very muddy, and in places quite impassable 

 owing to recent heavy rains, and as a consequence butterflies were 

 very scarce, icarus and rapce, being most in evidence. When I was 

 nearly stuck in the mud, a youth came to my assistance and acted 

 as guide until I left, and would take no tip ! He was quite satisfied 

 with the opportunity to pick up a little English, his ambition being 

 to emigrate to America shortly. Reaching Messina at 8.30 a.m. on 

 March 31st, I was in time for a good breakfast and able to spend a 

 full day enjoying the delightful atmosphere of Sicily, this being, I 

 was told, the first really nice day for several weeks past. 



Next day a picnic was arranged for me at the Campo Inglese, 

 where Lord Nelson formed his camp over one hundred years ago, 

 but from experience I recognise that picnics, like field meetings, are 

 seldom successful from a collector's point of view. Before reaching 

 the top of the hill I separated from my party to climb a spur of 

 Monte Cicci, intending to rejoin them at the camp. The only 

 butterflies on the wing were whites, and while I was on the steep 

 slope I noticed a cloud of large whites crossing the valley below, 

 moving towards the west. There must have been thousands of 

 them, and a few stragglers came up the hill in my direction, males 

 of Pieris brassicce, in good condition. I learnt afterwards that a 

 couple of friends of mine saw the cloud passing over the torrent bed 

 at La Scala, two or three miles further west, and captured some 

 specimens. With regard to the migration of butterflies I was told 

 in 1910 by a native of Cucuraci, the nearest village to the Campo 

 Inglese, that the people there look for an annual invasion of 

 white butterflies about May 20th, but he could not say where they 

 came from. Across the Straits in Calabria, not many miles distant, 

 there is a very extensive plain formed by the River Messina and its 

 tributary, the Marepotamo, which is a possible source of origin, and 

 I should Hke to explore that district at a future date. When I 

 joined my friends at the Campo Inglese, I found four thousand 

 soldiers in camp, many of them being engaged in drill, which was 

 interesting to watch. 



On May 19th I hurried off to spend three or four days at 

 Randazzo, the railway communication being so slow that I did not 

 arrive until sunset. At my hotel I met an entomologist from 

 Vienna, Herr Carl Hosfer, and he, with his wife, asked to be 

 allowed to join me next day. The forenoon was bright and sunny, 



ENT0M.~MAY, 1914. N 



