30 



The Butterflies of Sicily. 



By J. Platt Barrett, F.E.S. Read October I'i^th, 19 lo. 



Getting out of " harness " a couple of years ago I was invited by 

 my son to spend the winter with him and his family at Messina, in 

 Sicily, where I arrived early in November, 1908. In order to amuse 

 myself, I then decided to make a promiscuous collection of butter- 

 flies ; the only notes that I had with me being a few taken from 

 Miss Fountaine's paper, published in the "Entomologist" of 1897, 

 which I found to be wonderfully accurate. There is a fascination 

 about becoming once more a novice ; and for a few weeks I had the 

 delight of capturing various butterflies for the first time in Sicily. 

 Most of them proved to agree with our British species, and I came to 

 the conclusion that our butterflies form a good basis for a Sicilian 

 collection. Since then I have obtained a copy of Ragusa's list of 

 Sicilian butterflies, a total, all told, of ninety-seven species, and of 

 this number at least fifty are included in our list, leaving only forty- 

 seven purely Continental forms ; but, as a matter of fact, when 

 Ragusa compiled his list, he had in his collection, said to be the 

 finest in Sicily, examples of only eighty species. A few species are 

 in the list on the authority of various French and German collectors 

 who have visited the island, and their occurrence requires confirma- 

 tion. Unfortunately, my first little collection of two or three 

 hundred specimens was destroyed in the disastrous earthquake 

 of December 28th, together with all my belongings, notes included, 

 only excepting my night attire. Everything else I had was burnt up. 



Until Easter of 1909 my entomological pursuits were practically 

 ;«7, as my son and I dwelt in a little steam yacht (the "Lorna Doone"), 

 anchored in the harbour of Catania, where we felt safer than in a tall 

 building. The famous Good Friday processions, which take place 

 annually at Randazzo, attracted my son and myself, and we reached 

 that out-of-the-world and most interesting mediaeval town after dark 

 on the previous day, by the slow Circum-Etna railway. The fore- 

 noon processions over, we took a long walk, and I was tempted to 

 re-commence collecting when I came across some larvae crawling 

 about the grass on the rocky mountain side. These proved to be 

 Syntomis phegea. The next day we visited Bronte (including 

 Moniace, the lovely residence of Lord Bridport, successor to Lord 

 Nelson), and, crossing a lava bed, I noticed a species of orange-tip 

 flying about, which 1 thought was the sulphur orange-tip [Euchhe 

 dai/io/ie), but having no net I failed to capture a specimen. Those 

 orange-tips haunted me. We went on to Aderno, and on Easter 



