7 
— gatomologist,s 
o or Re 
JOURNAL oF VARIATION. 
Vou. XII. No. 3. Marcu 15ru, 1900. 
Digne Revisited. 
By H. ROWLAND BROWN, M.A., F.E.S. 
Digne has been much exploited of late years, and several articles 
have appeared in this and other entomological magazines*, dealing 
with its butterflies. However, as my wanderings led me there at the 
least frequented season of the year, some additional remarks may not 
be altogether out of place. One always, I find, leaves London either 
too late or too early for most of the summer insects, unless the 
holidays fall in July—the golden month for the collector. Last year 
‘‘the waiting time’’ was even longer than usual, for wherever I went 
there was the same story of a backward season and delayed emergence. 
Indeed, my first week in the famous capital of the Basses-Alpes was 
unexpectedly disappointing. With recollections of the year before at 
Hyeres and in the Swiss Alps, where the profusion of insect life is 
never failing, the scant array of full boxes at the end of long hours in 
the sun was at first rather discouraging. But Digne is a place which 
grows upon you, and it had for me, at any rate, this charm—the most 
potent of all—that it was quite unlike any other locality at home or 
abroad I had ever visited. When I arrived on June 8rd the spring 
broods were all going over, and the cold snap which affected even the 
Mediterranean littoral in the early days of April had obviously not left 
the Basses-Alpes untouched. Even the cherries, which grow, wild and 
cultivated, in normal seasons, so plentifully that the pigs are fed with 
them, had suffered, and one proprietor, whose tree I happened to fancy, 
objected on the ground that last year he had not enough for his animals, 
let alone for the foreigner. However, I may say here that wherever I 
went in the neighbourhood I always found the natives charmingly 
polite and hospitable. No one ever dreamed of interfering with my 
rambles, which led me through much enclosed land, vineyard and hay- 
field, and above all it was delightful to be in a place where the butterfly- 
net was a recognised and respected object of interest in the landscape. 
On the border it was different, but that (as Mr. Kipling says) is another 
story to be told elsewhere. 
The first impressions of the mountains about Digne is that they 
offer prospects of illimitable hunting. Experience soon taught me 
that in June, at any rate, the higher altitudes are unproductive, while 
* « Tint. Rec.,” ix., p. 221. ‘Ent. Mo, Mag.,” xxvili., p. 270; xxvii, p. 281; 
xxx., p. 175. ‘‘Entom.,” xxiil., p. 79. 
