﻿1869.] 43 



THREE LEPIDOPTEROLOGICAL EXCURSIONS NEAR MESERITZ, IN 

 THE PRUSSIAN PROVINCE POSEN. - 



BY PROFESSOR P. C. ZELLER. 



There are plenty of notices of excursions, but these generally 

 relate to localities which were quite new to the relater, and therefore 

 furnished him with extraordinary productions. If they relate to 

 the neighbourhood of his own dwelling place they then record only 

 that which is striking, and omit that which is usual. In neither case 

 do such notices furnish a complete picture of the Lepidopterological 

 Fauna. In a perfectly strange neighbourhood one certainly sees some 

 of the species peculiar to it ; but, as is well known, an investigation of 

 a few days will not suffice to discover those which are most concealed 

 and are often the most interesting If one hesitates to introduce the 

 products of one's own neighbourhood except in a systematic arrange- 

 ment, the reason seems very natural that one fears otherwise to furnish 

 much that is uninteresting. It is certain, that complete notices on the 

 appearances at particular periods of the year, if they come frequently 

 from localities situated near one another, and differing little in their 

 character, would show great agreement, and would, therefore, be of 

 little interest to the contributors. But it would be quite otherwise 

 for the dwellers in localities of a different nature. For example, that 

 which is the case around Meseritz and in a great part of Northern 

 Germany, will scarcely be met with anywhere in England ; it will, 

 therefore, for an Englishman, have plenty of interest, to learn some- 

 thing more precise, and to be able to make comparisons with his own 

 country, provided that he does not shut himself up too exclusively and 

 insist on being blind to the products which do not occur in his own 

 country ! I give, therefore, in the following pages the results of a few 

 excursions in former years, which I made to a precise locality, because 

 I believe that a foreigner can thereby best make a conception of the 

 nature of a part of this neighbourhood. Should these communications 

 meet with approval, I will in future notice such parts of the neighbour- 

 hood of Meseritz as have different peculiarities. 



I must, however, in the first place remark as follows : — the town of 

 Meseritz lies in a fruitful, nearly elliptical valley, not quite in the 

 middle. The river Obra intersects this valley in a very tortuous course, 

 and passes northwards by the town ; immediately below the town there 

 runs into it an equally serpentine stream, the Packlitz.* This valley 



* It was from this position between the two rivers that Meseritz received Its Tolish name, which, 

 1 have been informed, signifies Mesopotamia. 



