BUTTERFLIES OF MAJORCA 169 
1,100 feet, and altitude is a fact to be reckoned with in the dis- 
tribution of species. 
We approaclied Palma by way of Barcelona, the steamers 
from that port having a better reputation than those from Mar- 
seilles, and the transit occupied only about twelve hours. As 
we neared the capital, over a glassy sea and under a cloudless 
sky, the first object to arrest our attention was the picturesque 
old thirteenth century stronghold, Castle BelK er, perched high on 
the rocks above the bay, with the long, undulating limestone 
sierra to the north for a background. At the east end of the 
bay lay the harbour, flanked by the white houses of the town, 
rising tier upon tier up the slope, and dominated by the fine old 
Gothic cathedral, the white stone of which it is built mellowed 
by age and the hot rays of the sun into the colour of old gold. 
After a ramble through the quaint old streets and into the 
immediate environs of the town, where the high state of cultiva- 
tion rendered the net superfluous, we spent the rest of the day 
in making preparations for our start into the interior on the 
morrow. 
1 do not propose here to dilate upon the Phanerogams of the 
island beyond a bare mention, as they occur, of the most pro- 
minent species, because the chief floral expert of our party, 
Mr. W. E. Nicholson, can, and will I hope, deal with them to 
much better purpose elsewhere. At Palma I will only mention 
the Caper {Capparis spinosa), which festoons a long reach of high 
wall beneath the Cathedral with its lovely white flowers. 
As regards the Butterflies or Rhopalocera little or no informa- 
tion, as far as we can discover, has ever before been published 
on the subject. 
Professor Poulton, in the accounts of his visits to the island 
in 1900 and igoi {^Entomologist's Monthly Magazine, September, 
1901, and Transactions of the Entomological Society of London, 1904, 
p. 591) is ominously silent. In a superbly illustrated work in 
two volumes, by the Imperial Archduke who owns the villa 
called Miramar, there is a chapter professing to deal with the 
Natural History of the islands. In this Lepidoptera are dis- 
missed in one brief sentence, which, literally translated, runs 
as follows : “ Hordes of gorgeously coloured butterflies may be 
seen soaring above the tops of the highest trees.” It sounds 
quite tropical, and we began to have visions of a spectacle entirely 
new to our comparatively prosaic Continental experience. The 
Flora, however, is treated more at length, but with such obvious 
disregard for accuracy as largely to discount the value of the 
above rhapsodical statement regarding the butterflies, and our 
expectations began to assume a neutral tint. This was only in- 
tensified by a visit to Father Fernando Moragnes y de Manzanos 
in Palma. This earnest student of Nature showed us a very 
extensive collection of Hymenoptera, Diptera, Coleoptera and 
Mollusca, and, when we asked to see his butterflies, with a 
shrug of the shoulders he intimated that they were so few and 
