58 THE entomologist's record. 



the same may be said of the lower slopes where the box and the broom 

 are conspicuously thick. Low hills with patches of oak scrub, and 

 the river and torrent beds, on the other hand, provided improved sport, 

 and it was in the latter that I encountered the best specimens as well 

 as the best species. A little stream winding up through a shady ravine 

 at the back of the railway station, the Valley of the Vipers, on the left 

 bank of the Bleone, and a brooklet almost immediately opposite 

 coming from the mountains, proved the three most productive localities 

 of the kind, nor must I omit to mention the hills that skirt the 

 Torrent des Eaux-Chaudes, and best of all the lateral valley which 

 ascends to the right beyond the Etablissement Thermal. These, with 

 La Collette, the slopes behind the old Eomanesque church of Notre- 

 Dame, and the lower levels on the road to Les Dourbes, constitute so 

 far as I can discover the likeliest spots, though I came across nothing 

 but a few ^dissipated Plebeiiis ae<jon and Mditaca athalia in the famous 

 Bois du Eocher Coupe on the road to St. Auban. 



In a land where no one travels unless he be a commis-royafjeur it is 

 hardly to be expected that the train service should be rapid and com- 

 fortable. Once south of Grenoble the speed is not excessive, and 

 opportunities for enjoying the scenery of the local stations many. 

 Digne, as the crow flies, cannot be much more than seventy miles from 

 Grenoble, where the night train from Paris arrives at about nine in the 

 morning. But it is half-past three before the journey is over (123 

 miles by rail), and the omnibus from the " Boyer-Mistre," cleanest 

 and most comfortable of French provincial hotels, jogs leisurely up the 

 plane -shaded boulevard, which during various hours of the day serves 

 the double purpose of Champfi-de-Man and promenade. Yes ! this is 

 Digne, the goal of my entomological ambition for the time being. I 

 have Donzel's guide to the local Rhopalocera to work by, and the 

 notices collated by Mr. A. H. Jones, Mr. W. E. Nicholson, Mrs. 

 NichoU, Mr. Tutt, Dr. Chapman, and others to stimulate the pleasures 

 of anticipation, and there is Miss Fountaine in the hotel to add the 

 experiences of a week's previous collecting. Donzel's list is sufficiently 

 comprehensive. As far as the butterflies are concerned I do not find 

 that any substantial additions have been made since the French 

 naturalist paid his first visit here in the earlier part of the century. 

 Land has come into cultivation, the forest area has probably decreased, 

 but Digne itself has not altered much, nor the character of its moun- 

 tains and meadows. Climbing the stony side of La Collette the first 

 time from the Dourbes road the net is soon busily employed with the 

 beautifully fresh Theclids everywhere in evidence. A new insect always 

 marks the entomological calendar with the proverbial white stone. 

 To-day it is TJtccla qnni and T. ilicis, Avith its splendid var. cerri to 

 remind us that we are in south-east France. Papilio iiodaliriiis is 

 sweeping the higher knolls, raising expectations of that more delicate 

 Papilio with whose appearance the long journey from England has not i 

 been altogether unconnected. P. machaon is not far off, and presently we 1 

 find the clump of wild thyme at the forest edge alive with ClnysophaniiH 

 alcipJtron var. (jordiu^, the males common enough in all the splendour 

 and sheen of coppery lilac, the females less frequent, and in some cases 

 " throwing back" more to the type with Avhich we are familiar in the . 

 higher Alps. Then it is not long before a belated Lcucoiihasia dtijioncJieli 1 

 arrives on the scene, though the first brood of this species is obviously on ' 



