1871.} 22 
[ey | 
NOTES ON SOME CORSICAN INSECTS. 
BY REV. T. A. MARSHALL, M.A., F.L.S. 
Having made two tours, each of about six weeks’ duration, in the 
island of Corsica, and collected all orders of insects, I think a few indi- 
cations of what is to be found there may interest some entomologists. 
The island has been seldom examined by English naturalists, but 
ransacked by French coleopterists and lepidopterists, and by a few 
more miscellaneous observers. M. Reveliére has resided for some 
years in the island, and is well acquainted with its botanical and coleop- 
terous productions ; and last summer I met at Bastelica Messieurs E. 
Koziorowicz (ingénieur des ponts et chaussées) of Ajaccio, and E. Simon 
of Paris, the former bottling Coleoptera, and the latter Arachnida. The 
older researches of Rambur, Géné, Meyer-Diir, and others, are more 
_ or less known to readers of different journals.* 
Corsica and its sister island Sardinia form the botanical centre 
of the Mediterranean district, characterized by the predominance of 
Caryophyllacee and Labiata, and whose limits extend from Portugal 
and the Canaries on the West, to the Caucasus and Lebanon on the 
East, and on the north and south from the foot of the Alps and Balkan 
to the borders of the Sahara. The Articulata of the same region 
correspond to its Flora; and in Corsica (of which alone I can speak) 
are to be found united many of the forms belonging to widely distant 
lands. Corsica consists of a mass of mountains, culminating in 
Monte d’Oro and Monte Rotondo, at a height of about 2,764 métres— 
watered by various small torrents, and descending to the east in.a 
sandy and malarious plain, interspersed with lagoons, and swarming 
with Orthoptera. The lower mountains are clothed with a uniform 
“bush” of aromatic shrubs, giving place at a greater height to 
magnificent forests of chestnut, cork-oak, and pine; the sun-burnt 
plains exhibit the usual semi-tropical vegetation of the shores of the 
Mediterranean, and the mouths of the rivers are tangled with the 
rankest growth of which plants are capable. From June to August, 
- which was the limit of my rambles, the vicinity of the rivers affords the 
best ground for the entomologist—and his head quarters should be at 
Ajaccio. He will resort daily to the Campoloro, a most fertile marsh 
at the mouth of the Gravone, about three miles off, and replete with 
every convenience of shade, water, and varied vegetation —not without 
a slight suspicion of malaria. I shall mention some of the most notice- 
able insects which occurred to me, beginning with the Coleoptera. 
* See also Dieck’s ‘‘ Ein Entomologischer Ausflug in die Berge Stid-Corsica’s;’ Berl. Ent. Zeit., 
1870, p. 397 et seq. 
