173 
BUTTERFLIES OF MAJORCA 
could be less promising than the gloomy and somewhat grimy 
aspect of this hostel, but on the first floor we were shown into 
a spacious salon, in which the first thing that caught the eye 
was a piano with a violin resting on the top of it, and a 'cello 
not far away. This gave promise of a form of entertainment 
for which we were not at all prepared ; and indeed, as we 
indulged in the post-prandial coffee and cigars, the two young 
men who kept the hotel, with two violins added to their piano 
and ’cello, gave us quite a concert, including, to our surprise, 
“ Ein feste Burg, &c.," and several of Schumann’s fine chorales, 
winding up with the delightful “Traiimerei.” The charges 
here were 3s. 6d. a day; this included, besides a comfortable 
little bedroom each, coffee and rolls in the morning, a substan- 
tial meat lunch, a dinner of three or four courses, and a very 
excellent white wine from their own vineyard, with coffee after 
each meal if desired. 
We asked if it was possible to make this pay, and they 
said, “ No ! ” but there was such competition they could not 
help themselves, and one of them had taken up photography by 
way of redressing the balance. He was quite an artist, and we 
made a raid upon his stock which evidently pleased him. There 
was a very attractive looking defile not far away, which led to 
a famous old ruin called the “ Castell del Rey,” and up this, 
under a scorching sun, Nicholson and the estimable Treasurer of 
the Entomological Society of London made their way. 
Feeling rather depressed with our want of success I sat 
down in the shade to make a sketch of an old Roman bridge, 
and was somewhat consoled to find that as far as butterflies 
were concerned, I had lost nothing by allowing my companions 
to go on alone, as they added nothing new to our list. Here — 
as indeed almost everywhere — the most conspicuous phanerogam 
was the gay, degagee-looking Galactites tomentosa, and on the 
higher levels the stunted Palmetto {Chamcerops liiimilis) disputed 
a foothold on the bare soil with the singular Ephedra fragilis and 
its dense tangle of thin, jointed, leafless twigs. Among the 
Gramineae occurred those two lovely soft Channel Island plants, 
Lagurus ovatns and Cynosurus echiuatiis. 
We had intended to visit the stalactite caves of Arta and 
Manakor, and also to hunt up some of the famous Talayots, or 
megalithic monuments of a long past age, but time failed us, 
and on the following day, June 10, we drove to La Puebla, 
whence we took train to Palma, through a richly cultivated 
country. The olives here — many of them of enormous size and 
grotesquely twisted by the winds — are the principal trees in 
cultivation : then come the almond and the Carouba, or “ Johan- 
nisbrod,” as it is called in German, from the belief that its large 
brown saccharine pods are no other than John the Baptist’s 
“ locusts” {Ceratonia Siliqua), here sold as food for cattle and pigs. 
On the arable land beneath are grown bearded wheat, rye and 
oats — the latter just being gathered in. Near the towns and 
