British Insect collectors in Corsica 1869-1907.
Dec 2, 2019 15:31:10 GMT
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British Insect collectors in Corsica 1869-1907.
The French entomologist Jean-Baptiste Eugene Bellier (1819-1888) made at least six visits to Corsica from 1860 onward, adding to the knowledge of the Island's Lepidoptera. Among those he discovered on the island were Lycaena aegon var. corsica Bellier, 1862 = Plebejus argus corsicus, Argynnis paphia immaculata Bellier, 1862 and the beautiful green Geometrid Hylaea pinicolaria Bellier, 1861. In 1910 Bellier was honoured by Charles Oberthür (1845- 1924) with Lycaena argus bellieri. Bellier had discovered the butterfly on Corsica many years previously and it is now regarded as a distinct species Plebejus bellieri. The Corsican butterflies and to a lesser degree other insects, attracted many British entomologists to the Island. Many of the special Corsican butterflies are also found on Sardinia. As late as 1975, a new endemic subspecies Lysandra coridon nufrellensis Schurian, 1977 was described from a remote area of mountains in north-west Corsica.
In the second half of the 19th century an increasing number of British entomologists began to visit the European mainland and its islands to collect insects. William Forsell Kirby's European Butterflies and Moths published in 1882 was based upon the German naturalist Friedrich Berge's work Schmetterlingsbuch (1863). Kirby's work with its beautiful colour plates was produced as an introduction for those affluent entomologists and tourists able to leave Britain and collect in other European countries. Kirby had previously published in 1862 a smaller work A Manual of European Butterflies, similar in concept to Stainton's Manual of British Butterflies and Moths (1857–59). H. T. Stainton's journal the Entomologist's Annual published between 1856 & 1874, mainly gave details of new and rare insects that had been added to the British list. During that period, many collectors in Britain were to content to collect only native insects and never ventured further afield. However, in Stainton's journal (1866) a few collecting reports from mainland Europe that were translated from German journals started to appear, such as the visit in 1862 by Otto Staudinger and Maximilian Ferdinand Wocke to collect butterflies in Finland. In the Entomologist's Annual for 1866, Stainton recounted his first visit to Engadine region of Switzerland, which was already famous for its alpine butterflies.
Figure 1. Plate 1 from Hans Rebel's (1910) Fr. Berge's Schmetterlingsbuch nach dem gegenwärtigen Stande der Lepidopterologie neu bearb. Papilio hospiton is endemic to Corsica and Sardinia, with Papilio machaon and Iphiclides podalirius also being found there.
The Reverend Thomas Ansell Marshall in Corsica.
The Reverend Thomas Ansell Marshall (1827-1903) was born in Keswick in northern England. He was a master at Cheltenham College and afterwards a principle of Milford College. Subsequently he had various livings in England before moving to Antigua in the West Indies as a Bishop’s Chaplain, losing his wife there from fever and from which he nearly died. He returned to England, where he lived with his sister in Cornwall, remaining until 1897, when he moved to Ajaccio, Corsica, devoting the rest of his life to entomology. He specialized in the Hymenoptera, especially the Ichneumonidae and first visited Corsica in the early 1860s. Marshall published Notes on Some Corsican insects in the Entomologist's Monthly Magazine (1871-72), with an extensive list of his captures of Coleoptera, Ortoptera and Hemiptera that he made during two tours of a six-week duration on the island in 1869 & 1870. Marshall's article included new species of Corsican Hemiptera that were described by John Scott (1823- 1888).
During his visit to Corsica in 1869-70 Marshall met Eugene Louis Simon (1848–1924) of Paris, and Edouard-Ladislas Koziorowicz (1838-?) of Ajaccio, hunting insects at Bastelica, the former bottling Arachnida, the other Coleoptera. He also met the coleopterist and botanist Eugene Reveliere (1822-1892), who lived for several years on the island and added much to the knowledge of the Coleoptera of the island. On his return to his home to England in 1870 Marshall arrived at Marseille on the mail steamer without papers or a passport, that during that period was not usually needed, but war had broken out with Germany and all foreigners were suspect; his luggage was so roughly handled by the porters and sailors that he lost 200 of his specimens that had taken several weeks to collect.
British Entomologists in Corsica 1893.
With the completion of the Corsican Mountain Railway in 1893, several English collectors of separate parties converged at various times that summer upon the Hotel Monte d, Oro on the Col de Vizzavona. The pass at 3,816 ft /1,163m was well known for its mountain butterflies. Below the towering Monte d, Oro 7835 ft / 2388 m high, the lower slopes and river valley are clothed in beautiful and lofty Corsican pine and beech forest. As Corsica and Vizzavona in particular, because of its magnificent scenery was now high on the European tour of the wealthy British, the Grand Hotel de la Foret was built in 1893 above the railway station, to provide suitable accommodation for them and for an increasing number of French visitors. Today the Grand Hotel de la Foret lies in ruin, a testament to the wealthy of the Victorian age. The Hotel Monte d, Oro on the pass itself, has been joined by others and it is still a busy inn and restaurant today.
Figure 2. Old postcard of the Hotel Monte d, Oro on the Col de Vizzavona.
Figure 3. Old Postcard with the Vizzavona Railway station and the Grand Hotel de la Foret.
Arriving at the Hotel Monte d, Oro on the 30 May 1893 was the lepidopterist and botanist Richard Spiers Standen (1835-1917), who was accompanied by the coleopterist George Charles Champion (1851-1927). Standen was successful in business and had retired at forty-five to pursue his interest in Lepidoptera and botany. Champion a former watchmaker, interest involved the Coleoptera, especially those of South America. He worked as a collector for Frederick DuCane Godman and Osbert Salvin for their Biologia Centrali-America. Arriving in Guatemala in 1879, Champion then started four years of journeys in Central America, returning to England with 15,000 specimens. The rare and beautiful butterfly Drucina championi that he discovered in the mountains of Guatemala was named in his honour by Godman & Salvin in 1881, who wrote " We gladly avail ourselves of the opportunity of naming this fine species after its discoverer Mr Champion, whose successful industry has added vastly to our knowledge of the insect fauna of Guatemala." Champion became the secretary to Godman and Salvin, seeing through the press the 52 volumes of the Biologia Centrali-Americana. Champion also prepared the Coleoptera sections for publication and wrote the volumes and parts covering the Heteromera, Elateridae, Dascillidae, Cassidinae and the Curculionidae. He described over 4,000 species new to science in this work and was a prolific author of Coleoptera for the Entomology Journals. Standen had originally planned to visit Corsica with Albert Hugh Jones (1841-1924), who had to delay his visit but turned up at the hotel a week later with his brother Reginald Jones (1858-1920) the watercolour artist. Standen and Albert Jones had collected butterflies widely in Europe, sometimes together.
Margaret Fountaine (1862-1940) also arrived in June from Italy, meeting her sister Rachel at the Hotel Monte d, Oro. Fountaine was just beginning her world travels to collect butterflies. On the 20 June John William Yerbury (1847-1927) arrived at the hotel, accompanied by his friend Frederick Lemann (1845-1908), who had travelled widely in Europe collecting butterflies and had introduced several British entomologists to Corsica. Yerbury's whose family were landed gentry, served in the army in Aden and India, where he reached the rank of a Lieutenant-Colonel. Yerbury collected among others things, mammals, reptiles, birds and insects, discovering many new species and has several taxa named after him, such as The Gecko Hemidactylus yerburii, and he was the author of several new rodent species that he discovered in the Middle East. Yerbury first collected butterflies in Aden in 1869, and later India, sending his collections to Arthur Gardiner Butler (1844-1925) at the British Museum and to Colonel Charles Swinhoe (1838-1923) and Charles Lionel Augustus de Niceville (1852-1901) in India; the latter the co-author of Butterflies of India (1883-1890), published in three volumes. Yerbury is commemorated by the butterfly he discovered in India Neptis yerburii Butler, 1886. In the latter part of the 19th century Yerbury became mainly interested in Diptera and of private means he could travel throughout Britain adding much to the distribution of this group, on which he became very knowledgeable. He made several collecting trips in search of Diptera to various parts of Europe. He had come to Corsica mainly to collect flies, but there he collected other things, including beetles that he gave to Champion on his return to England. Yerbury, of who no known photograph exists, never formed a private collection, giving all his specimens to museums and much of his Diptera went to George Henry Verrall (1848 –1911) to assist in his taxonomic studies and those of his nephew James Edward Collin (1876- 1968). Yerbury was content that his specimens were in the hands of those that who would make the best use of them. The Verrall & Collin collection is now in the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.
Arriving at the Hotel Monte d, Oro at the same time as Yerbury and Lemann was Frederic Raine (1851-1919), a lepidopterist and botanist who having left his native Durham now lived in Hyeres on the Mediterranean coast of France. William Edward Nicholson (1866-1945) a solicitor from Lewes, Sussex, interested in botany and Lepidoptera joined the party still at the Hotel on the 6 July.
Figure 4. George Charles Champion.
On their arrival in Corsica from Marseilles Standen and Champion spent the hot day collecting along the coast at Ajaccio, before returning to their luggage at 4pm and the train to Vizzavona. They forget their proximity to the malarious Camp dell, Oro, Standen taking Maniola jurtina hispulla, Aricia cramera, large and strongly marked Papilio machaon, Papilio podalirius and one fine example of Lybithea celti. In the afternoon on the north side of the town he took Pieris daplidice and two of the skipper Carcharodus flocciferus. Champion bottled among other beetles Pimelia goryi sardea (Tenebrionidae), endemic to the island and Sardinia, a specimen of Bruchus longicornis (Chrysomelidae), and specimens of Coraebus rubi (Buprestidae) that he found on brambles, together with Microhoria dejeanii corsica (Tenebrionoidea), one of the many endemic beetles. It swarmed on trees and bushes.
At Vizzavona it was often cold for June, the butterflies were scarce and for a period Margaret Fountaine went down to collect on her own at Ajaccio. One day from there she caught the 7am train for nine hours of collecting in the Macchie (arid scrubland) at Mezzana. Hot and thirsty, she visited a small wayside Inn and was soon drinking too much wine with the locals, returning to her hotel at Ajaccio more than a little drunk. Her sister Rachel soon joined her at Ajaccio, before they both returned to the mountains at Vizzavona. Standen wrote of the butterflies he encountered in Corsica "40 species for the month of June seemed a poor total". However, there were still nice things to be had, near to the hotel he noted that Plebejus argus had females with beautiful blue wings, he seemed unaware in his account of the butterflies he collected on the Island, published in the Entomologist (1893) that they were the L. aegon var. corsica Bellier, 1862 = P. argus corsicus. Flying with them were the little satyrid Coenonympha corinna. P. argus corsicus was also plentiful in the meadows further down at Tattone, a village lying just off the road Corte, and here Standen was delighted to take his first Papilio hospiton, a perfect female feeding on a clover head and at the same spot later Raine took a fine male ; the only others seen were a worn male here by Albert Jones who also found a worn female at Corte.
During a visit to Corte, while Standen was sketching the large fortress and risked getting into trouble with the authorities, Albert Jones enjoyed himself catching the beautiful Argynnis pandora and among them took a single specimen of the endemic Argynnis elisa, not yet fully on the wing until July. Among the fritillaries were the Corsican Grayling - Hipparchia neomiris. Near Corte, it was along the two river valleys the Tavignano and Restonica, which flow down from the hills, where the aromatic shrubs and brambles that insect life abounded most. The collecting was also good at Bocognano, situated six miles from Vizzavona on the road to Ajaccio and here lived Dr George Trotter (1850-1946) with his family, until his return to England in 1895. He was hospitable to his fellow countrymen and joined them on their insect hunts, but it is not known if he himself was a collector.
Champion who devoted himself to only collecting Coleoptera and Hemiptera (Hetroptera), published an extensive list of species with notes in the Transactions of the Entomological Society of London (1894). Among those beetles that Champion recorded, only a few are mentioned here. Vizzavona was a splendid centre for Coleoptera, with much fallen timber in the surrounding forest it was a paradise for the beetle hunter. The violet and black Corsican endemic Probaticus superbus (Tenebrionidae) was found under bark of pines and the gigantic larva and pupae of the Cerambycid Ergates faber were found in their stumps. In a pine stump he found only a single specimen of the stag beetle Lucanus tetraoden, but Yerbury who stayed in Corsica until September found them to be numerous and later in England, kindly presented his specimens to Champion. Excursions from Vizzavona were made to Tattone, Vivario, Corte, Bocognano, Tavera and Ajaccio, the railway helping a great deal. Cetonia aurata (Scarabaeidae) was in an extraordinary amount of varieties, especially in the flowery meadows at Tattone, where black, blue (fig 6), green and copper examples all occurred together . Here C. aurata was found on flowers with the scarabs Protaetia cuprea, Protaetia morio and Trichius zonatus, together with others that included the longhorns Stictoleptura cordigera with its attractive red body, and heart-shaped black markings (fig 5), and the similar Stenurella bifasciata. The arborescent heath with its evergreen oaks between Bocognano and Tavera proved to be a rich locality and by beating, and sweeping a good number of beetles were taken, such as the rare weevil Cleonus tabidus (Curculionoidea).
Figure 5. Stictoleptura cordigera. Col de Vizzavona July 2015.
Figure 6. Cetonia aurata blue form Col de Vizzavona July 2015.
Figure 7. Rocky ridge below the Monte d, Oro. Habitat of Corsican endemic and other butterflies. July 2015.
A meeting with Corsican Bandits 1893.
Bocognano was well known for its association with perhaps the most famous of the Corsican bandits Jacques Bonelli (1832-1896) and his brother Antoine Bonelli (1827-1907). Antoine already a wanted man for attempting to assassinate the mayor of Bocognano for refusing to marry his sister, was soon joined in the Maquis by brother Jacques, who also attempted to kill the major before leaving the village, wounding him in the legs. The outlaws were soon joined by others of their clan. The Bonelli brothers then killed two rivals on the same day and were sentenced in absentia in March 1854 to the death penalty for the second time. In 1856 they killed an informant who was accompanied by two gendarmes, which they are spared. Between September 1886 and the month of January 1887, the authorities launched a vast police operation against the Maquis Bellacoccia as they were known. The village of Bocognano was occupied by the police and reprisals were taken against the villages and some are imprisoned on the grounds of helping the criminals, and their livestock is seized. The deployment of force only added to the notoriety enjoyed by bandits. After 44 years in the Maquis, Antoine surrendered in June 1892 on the Vizzavona Pass, after a short trial he was pardoned and ordered to leave Corsica, but after ten weeks he is allowed to return from France. There will be no pardon for Jacques who remains an outlaw until his death.
Standen records in 1893 " before leaving England we were gravely cautioned to beware of brigands ; whereas, so far as we could learn, this particular rascal does not exist in Corscia at all events. Certainly we were daily in solitudes most favourable for his exploits, but he let us severely alone. The fact is, in their code of morals, the outlaw or bandit, is looked as a noble fellow ; the robber, or brigand as a miserable weak kneed skunk. We found the peasants almost invariably polite, good-natured and hospitable." Standen records that Antoine Bonelli now a mountain guide, called on the English at the hotel with a bouquet picked from his village garden.
Standen departed Corsica at Ajaccio on the 25 June with Albert Jones and a few days later Champion left on the 28 June. On the 12 July a meeting had been arranged for some of those English entomologists still at Vizzavona to visit Jacques Bonelli in his mountain hideout at Bocognano. The party visiting the outlaw comprised of Margaret Fountaine, her sister Rachel, a Miss Neil, Reginald Jones, Raine, Yerbury and Lemann. Fountaine gave full details in her diary of meeting Jacques Bonelli, which was reproduced in the book Love Among the butterflies by W.F. Carter (1980). Fountaine wrote " And now, beneath the shadows of the rocks, with the July sun pouring down, he sits, a broad, well-built man with a hard handsome face, apparently at ease ; but armed to the teeth. In that wandering restless eye a close observer will detect that he is always on the alert, though scouts have been dispatched to watch for gendarmes, by old Marthe, our guide. The whole proceeding was a very rash one, however delightful ; I drank with Jacques myself, and sometimes in the quieter walks of life I love to look back upon that wild mountain scene, the outlaw and his clan, the savage dogs who prowled about among the grey rocks and the purple heather ... it makes a sharp contrast to the dull quiet of an English Home". She picked a sprig of heather, pressed it and added it her diary as a memento. Yerbury she noted looked upon Jacques as a "red handed villain who had no wish to worship as a hero". Yerbury seemed rather bored with the event, adding just a few words in his diary " walked on to the Brigand's den, saw the outlaw and walked back to Bocognano, walk hot and interesting". Despite Fountaine's assertion in her book that Jacques Bonelli and his Clan had killed at least 6 or 7 gendarmes, from information she had from the locals, not a single policeman are said to have been killed by them on the island, according to recently posted online history source.
The Fountaine sisters left for Switzerland shortly after meeting with Bonelli and Frederick Lemann left Corscia on 16 July and William Nicholson departed 23 July. Yerbury who seemed to enjoy the insect collecting in Corsica stayed on, now often accompanied by Frederic Raine and Dr Trotter. Chandler (2014) gives furthers details of Yerbury's travels in Corsica from his diaries, held at the Oxford University Museum. On 16 August Yerbury left Vizzavona and travelled to Corte and took the wild road to Calacuccia to Evisa, staying there for a week, hunting insects in the Forest of Aitone, where he captured a new fly in numbers at water mint and higher in the mountains took a new Robber-fly, a species of Laphria (Asilidae). He spent a night in a hotel at Piana, recording it was " beastly, fleas galore", before returning to Vizzavona via Ajaccio. Yerbury later left Corsica at Bastia on 1 September with Raine, staying with him for two weeks collecting at his home at Hyeres, with excursions to La Crau and Carqueiranne.
Figure 8. A late 19th Corsican postcard showing Antoine Boinnelli.
Margaret Fountaine at Luri & Evisa Corsica 1907.
During her her second visit to Corsica from May to July 1907, instead of re-visiting Vizzavona and Ajaccio, that was increasingly visited by most British continental collectors, she based herself at Luri in Cap Corse and at Evisa a village at 850 meters in the Corse-du-Sud. She found Luri in Cap Corse the best for spring collecting, where she stayed in the small two-bedroom Hotel de France. The very local Euchloe insularis, which is an endemic of Corsica and Sardinia was first taken by Fountaine on the 5 May at Luri at the Col de Sant below Seneca's Tower at 381 meters. On the southern slopes of the mountains at Luri, with the help of Bersa, her affectionate name for her Syrian companion Khalil Neimy, she took 14 specimens of E. insularis, waiting because of their rapid flight for them to feed at the wild rosemary flowers, when they were most easily netted. She was unsuccessful in discovering the eggs or larva. The species was rare at Evisa in June but still in good condition. P. hospiton was first captured on the 8 May on the Col de la Serra (315 meters) at Cagnano, but out of four specimens only one was worth keeping; she suggested at these lower levels it would be on the wing as early as April. At Evisa the butterfly was rare and the greater number was also found to be damaged.
Figure 9. Margaret Fountaine aged 50 in 1912.
Figure 10. Old postcard of Evisa.
Figure 11. Old postcard of The Hotel Gigli at Evisa, where Margaret Fountaine stayed with Khalil Neimy in 1907.
Fountaine wrote of Evisa " is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen, close to the borders of the great Forest of Aitone on one side, and on the other looking over chains of rugged mountains towards the sea and sunset." The Hotel Gigli was most agreeable, clean and comfortable, and the proprietor was most helpful in making his guests feel welcome. Aglais ichnusa another endemic of Corsica and Sardinia was first seen at Luri on 16 May and at Evisa in June it was plentiful, where any amount of the larva could be collected on the stinging nettles, but she found that the mature full fed ones were nearly all stung by ichneumon wasps, and that it was best to collect batches of very young larva to breed. A. eliza appeared in great profusion in the Forest of Aitone towards the end of June, flying with A. paphia immaculata, the dark female form of that species valezina and A. pandora. On the Col de Vergio at 1,478 m A. eliza was plentiful in July, as was P. argus corsicus.
Above the sandstone plateau of La Piana on the rocky ridges of the arbutus clothed mountains, Margaret hunted Charaxes jasius with her former dragoman Khalil, with whom she had formed a strong personal attraction, writing " all through the scorching heat of the mid-summer days C. jasius romps and gambols with his fellows", so much so she had difficulty in getting pristine examples. Here C. jasius occurred with Hipparchia aristaeus,Coenonympha corinna, Hipparchia neomiris and Lasiommata paramegaera. She had captured a nice aberration of L. paramegaera (that she referred to as Pararge megaera tigellius) on the 24 May at Luri that had the black apical forewing spot twice the normal size. Before leaving Corsica Fountaine found that a brood of the endemic skipper Spialia therapne had emerged at Calacuccia on the 25 July, previously it had only been found many weeks before in May at Luri and Corte. It was while she was setting her bred specimens of newly hatched A. ichnusa, a telegram arrived informing her that her mother had died and she soon left for England.
Figure 12. Aglais ichnusa. Specimen bred from Corte by H.C. Playne in 1897 and one taken by R.S. Standen in 1893 at Vizzavona. Oxford University Museum collections.
Figure 13. The British continued to visit the Vizzavona area. A pair of Plebejus argus corsicus from Tattone, collected by Reverend Frank Edward Lowe (1853-1918) in 1914. Ex Henry Rowland-Brown coll. Oxford University Museum collections.
Today there are a few more buildings on the Col de Vizzavona, but little else has changed and all the butterfly species that many British entomologists came to collect still thrive there. Sitting in the open restaurant of the timeless Hotel Monte d, Oro enjoying cool drinks in 2015, after searching for butterflies on the sun-baked slopes above the pass, it was easy to imagine that party of British collectors doing exactly the same here 122 years previously. Down in the hamlet of Vizzavona, the ruin of Grand Hotel de la Foret dominates, a reminder of when it was a busy tourist spot. Those rich meadows much frequented by British collectors at Tattone, situated a few miles from Vizzavona along the road to Corte have gone, being replaced by buildings, a reminder that nothing is static in an ever changing world.
References.
Bellier de la Chavignerie J.E. 1862. Varities Nouvelles De Lepidopteres. Annales de la Société Entomologique de France. p.p. 615- 616
Carter W.F. 1980. Love among the Butterflies. The Travels and Adventures of a Victorian Lady Margaret Fountaine. Collins, London.
Chandler P. J. 2014. Dr John Henry Wood and Colonel John William Yerbury - their different lives as dipterists. Dipterists Digest Volume 21 Supplement.
Marshall T. A. 1871. Notes on Some Corsican insects. The Entomologist's Monthly Magazine. 7: 225-228. 248-250..
Marshall T. A. 1872. Notes on Some Corsican insects. The Entomologist's Monthly Magazine 8: 191-193.
Champion G.C. 1894. An Entomological Excursion to Corsica. Transactions of the Entomological Society of London. pp. 225-242.
Fountaine M.E. 1907. A Few Notes on Some Corsican Butterflies. The Entomologist 40: 100-103.
Standen R. S. 1893. Among the butterflies in Corsica. The Entomologist 26: 236-238, 259-263.
The French entomologist Jean-Baptiste Eugene Bellier (1819-1888) made at least six visits to Corsica from 1860 onward, adding to the knowledge of the Island's Lepidoptera. Among those he discovered on the island were Lycaena aegon var. corsica Bellier, 1862 = Plebejus argus corsicus, Argynnis paphia immaculata Bellier, 1862 and the beautiful green Geometrid Hylaea pinicolaria Bellier, 1861. In 1910 Bellier was honoured by Charles Oberthür (1845- 1924) with Lycaena argus bellieri. Bellier had discovered the butterfly on Corsica many years previously and it is now regarded as a distinct species Plebejus bellieri. The Corsican butterflies and to a lesser degree other insects, attracted many British entomologists to the Island. Many of the special Corsican butterflies are also found on Sardinia. As late as 1975, a new endemic subspecies Lysandra coridon nufrellensis Schurian, 1977 was described from a remote area of mountains in north-west Corsica.
In the second half of the 19th century an increasing number of British entomologists began to visit the European mainland and its islands to collect insects. William Forsell Kirby's European Butterflies and Moths published in 1882 was based upon the German naturalist Friedrich Berge's work Schmetterlingsbuch (1863). Kirby's work with its beautiful colour plates was produced as an introduction for those affluent entomologists and tourists able to leave Britain and collect in other European countries. Kirby had previously published in 1862 a smaller work A Manual of European Butterflies, similar in concept to Stainton's Manual of British Butterflies and Moths (1857–59). H. T. Stainton's journal the Entomologist's Annual published between 1856 & 1874, mainly gave details of new and rare insects that had been added to the British list. During that period, many collectors in Britain were to content to collect only native insects and never ventured further afield. However, in Stainton's journal (1866) a few collecting reports from mainland Europe that were translated from German journals started to appear, such as the visit in 1862 by Otto Staudinger and Maximilian Ferdinand Wocke to collect butterflies in Finland. In the Entomologist's Annual for 1866, Stainton recounted his first visit to Engadine region of Switzerland, which was already famous for its alpine butterflies.
Figure 1. Plate 1 from Hans Rebel's (1910) Fr. Berge's Schmetterlingsbuch nach dem gegenwärtigen Stande der Lepidopterologie neu bearb. Papilio hospiton is endemic to Corsica and Sardinia, with Papilio machaon and Iphiclides podalirius also being found there.
The Reverend Thomas Ansell Marshall in Corsica.
The Reverend Thomas Ansell Marshall (1827-1903) was born in Keswick in northern England. He was a master at Cheltenham College and afterwards a principle of Milford College. Subsequently he had various livings in England before moving to Antigua in the West Indies as a Bishop’s Chaplain, losing his wife there from fever and from which he nearly died. He returned to England, where he lived with his sister in Cornwall, remaining until 1897, when he moved to Ajaccio, Corsica, devoting the rest of his life to entomology. He specialized in the Hymenoptera, especially the Ichneumonidae and first visited Corsica in the early 1860s. Marshall published Notes on Some Corsican insects in the Entomologist's Monthly Magazine (1871-72), with an extensive list of his captures of Coleoptera, Ortoptera and Hemiptera that he made during two tours of a six-week duration on the island in 1869 & 1870. Marshall's article included new species of Corsican Hemiptera that were described by John Scott (1823- 1888).
During his visit to Corsica in 1869-70 Marshall met Eugene Louis Simon (1848–1924) of Paris, and Edouard-Ladislas Koziorowicz (1838-?) of Ajaccio, hunting insects at Bastelica, the former bottling Arachnida, the other Coleoptera. He also met the coleopterist and botanist Eugene Reveliere (1822-1892), who lived for several years on the island and added much to the knowledge of the Coleoptera of the island. On his return to his home to England in 1870 Marshall arrived at Marseille on the mail steamer without papers or a passport, that during that period was not usually needed, but war had broken out with Germany and all foreigners were suspect; his luggage was so roughly handled by the porters and sailors that he lost 200 of his specimens that had taken several weeks to collect.
British Entomologists in Corsica 1893.
With the completion of the Corsican Mountain Railway in 1893, several English collectors of separate parties converged at various times that summer upon the Hotel Monte d, Oro on the Col de Vizzavona. The pass at 3,816 ft /1,163m was well known for its mountain butterflies. Below the towering Monte d, Oro 7835 ft / 2388 m high, the lower slopes and river valley are clothed in beautiful and lofty Corsican pine and beech forest. As Corsica and Vizzavona in particular, because of its magnificent scenery was now high on the European tour of the wealthy British, the Grand Hotel de la Foret was built in 1893 above the railway station, to provide suitable accommodation for them and for an increasing number of French visitors. Today the Grand Hotel de la Foret lies in ruin, a testament to the wealthy of the Victorian age. The Hotel Monte d, Oro on the pass itself, has been joined by others and it is still a busy inn and restaurant today.
Figure 2. Old postcard of the Hotel Monte d, Oro on the Col de Vizzavona.
Figure 3. Old Postcard with the Vizzavona Railway station and the Grand Hotel de la Foret.
Arriving at the Hotel Monte d, Oro on the 30 May 1893 was the lepidopterist and botanist Richard Spiers Standen (1835-1917), who was accompanied by the coleopterist George Charles Champion (1851-1927). Standen was successful in business and had retired at forty-five to pursue his interest in Lepidoptera and botany. Champion a former watchmaker, interest involved the Coleoptera, especially those of South America. He worked as a collector for Frederick DuCane Godman and Osbert Salvin for their Biologia Centrali-America. Arriving in Guatemala in 1879, Champion then started four years of journeys in Central America, returning to England with 15,000 specimens. The rare and beautiful butterfly Drucina championi that he discovered in the mountains of Guatemala was named in his honour by Godman & Salvin in 1881, who wrote " We gladly avail ourselves of the opportunity of naming this fine species after its discoverer Mr Champion, whose successful industry has added vastly to our knowledge of the insect fauna of Guatemala." Champion became the secretary to Godman and Salvin, seeing through the press the 52 volumes of the Biologia Centrali-Americana. Champion also prepared the Coleoptera sections for publication and wrote the volumes and parts covering the Heteromera, Elateridae, Dascillidae, Cassidinae and the Curculionidae. He described over 4,000 species new to science in this work and was a prolific author of Coleoptera for the Entomology Journals. Standen had originally planned to visit Corsica with Albert Hugh Jones (1841-1924), who had to delay his visit but turned up at the hotel a week later with his brother Reginald Jones (1858-1920) the watercolour artist. Standen and Albert Jones had collected butterflies widely in Europe, sometimes together.
Margaret Fountaine (1862-1940) also arrived in June from Italy, meeting her sister Rachel at the Hotel Monte d, Oro. Fountaine was just beginning her world travels to collect butterflies. On the 20 June John William Yerbury (1847-1927) arrived at the hotel, accompanied by his friend Frederick Lemann (1845-1908), who had travelled widely in Europe collecting butterflies and had introduced several British entomologists to Corsica. Yerbury's whose family were landed gentry, served in the army in Aden and India, where he reached the rank of a Lieutenant-Colonel. Yerbury collected among others things, mammals, reptiles, birds and insects, discovering many new species and has several taxa named after him, such as The Gecko Hemidactylus yerburii, and he was the author of several new rodent species that he discovered in the Middle East. Yerbury first collected butterflies in Aden in 1869, and later India, sending his collections to Arthur Gardiner Butler (1844-1925) at the British Museum and to Colonel Charles Swinhoe (1838-1923) and Charles Lionel Augustus de Niceville (1852-1901) in India; the latter the co-author of Butterflies of India (1883-1890), published in three volumes. Yerbury is commemorated by the butterfly he discovered in India Neptis yerburii Butler, 1886. In the latter part of the 19th century Yerbury became mainly interested in Diptera and of private means he could travel throughout Britain adding much to the distribution of this group, on which he became very knowledgeable. He made several collecting trips in search of Diptera to various parts of Europe. He had come to Corsica mainly to collect flies, but there he collected other things, including beetles that he gave to Champion on his return to England. Yerbury, of who no known photograph exists, never formed a private collection, giving all his specimens to museums and much of his Diptera went to George Henry Verrall (1848 –1911) to assist in his taxonomic studies and those of his nephew James Edward Collin (1876- 1968). Yerbury was content that his specimens were in the hands of those that who would make the best use of them. The Verrall & Collin collection is now in the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.
Arriving at the Hotel Monte d, Oro at the same time as Yerbury and Lemann was Frederic Raine (1851-1919), a lepidopterist and botanist who having left his native Durham now lived in Hyeres on the Mediterranean coast of France. William Edward Nicholson (1866-1945) a solicitor from Lewes, Sussex, interested in botany and Lepidoptera joined the party still at the Hotel on the 6 July.
Figure 4. George Charles Champion.
On their arrival in Corsica from Marseilles Standen and Champion spent the hot day collecting along the coast at Ajaccio, before returning to their luggage at 4pm and the train to Vizzavona. They forget their proximity to the malarious Camp dell, Oro, Standen taking Maniola jurtina hispulla, Aricia cramera, large and strongly marked Papilio machaon, Papilio podalirius and one fine example of Lybithea celti. In the afternoon on the north side of the town he took Pieris daplidice and two of the skipper Carcharodus flocciferus. Champion bottled among other beetles Pimelia goryi sardea (Tenebrionidae), endemic to the island and Sardinia, a specimen of Bruchus longicornis (Chrysomelidae), and specimens of Coraebus rubi (Buprestidae) that he found on brambles, together with Microhoria dejeanii corsica (Tenebrionoidea), one of the many endemic beetles. It swarmed on trees and bushes.
At Vizzavona it was often cold for June, the butterflies were scarce and for a period Margaret Fountaine went down to collect on her own at Ajaccio. One day from there she caught the 7am train for nine hours of collecting in the Macchie (arid scrubland) at Mezzana. Hot and thirsty, she visited a small wayside Inn and was soon drinking too much wine with the locals, returning to her hotel at Ajaccio more than a little drunk. Her sister Rachel soon joined her at Ajaccio, before they both returned to the mountains at Vizzavona. Standen wrote of the butterflies he encountered in Corsica "40 species for the month of June seemed a poor total". However, there were still nice things to be had, near to the hotel he noted that Plebejus argus had females with beautiful blue wings, he seemed unaware in his account of the butterflies he collected on the Island, published in the Entomologist (1893) that they were the L. aegon var. corsica Bellier, 1862 = P. argus corsicus. Flying with them were the little satyrid Coenonympha corinna. P. argus corsicus was also plentiful in the meadows further down at Tattone, a village lying just off the road Corte, and here Standen was delighted to take his first Papilio hospiton, a perfect female feeding on a clover head and at the same spot later Raine took a fine male ; the only others seen were a worn male here by Albert Jones who also found a worn female at Corte.
During a visit to Corte, while Standen was sketching the large fortress and risked getting into trouble with the authorities, Albert Jones enjoyed himself catching the beautiful Argynnis pandora and among them took a single specimen of the endemic Argynnis elisa, not yet fully on the wing until July. Among the fritillaries were the Corsican Grayling - Hipparchia neomiris. Near Corte, it was along the two river valleys the Tavignano and Restonica, which flow down from the hills, where the aromatic shrubs and brambles that insect life abounded most. The collecting was also good at Bocognano, situated six miles from Vizzavona on the road to Ajaccio and here lived Dr George Trotter (1850-1946) with his family, until his return to England in 1895. He was hospitable to his fellow countrymen and joined them on their insect hunts, but it is not known if he himself was a collector.
Champion who devoted himself to only collecting Coleoptera and Hemiptera (Hetroptera), published an extensive list of species with notes in the Transactions of the Entomological Society of London (1894). Among those beetles that Champion recorded, only a few are mentioned here. Vizzavona was a splendid centre for Coleoptera, with much fallen timber in the surrounding forest it was a paradise for the beetle hunter. The violet and black Corsican endemic Probaticus superbus (Tenebrionidae) was found under bark of pines and the gigantic larva and pupae of the Cerambycid Ergates faber were found in their stumps. In a pine stump he found only a single specimen of the stag beetle Lucanus tetraoden, but Yerbury who stayed in Corsica until September found them to be numerous and later in England, kindly presented his specimens to Champion. Excursions from Vizzavona were made to Tattone, Vivario, Corte, Bocognano, Tavera and Ajaccio, the railway helping a great deal. Cetonia aurata (Scarabaeidae) was in an extraordinary amount of varieties, especially in the flowery meadows at Tattone, where black, blue (fig 6), green and copper examples all occurred together . Here C. aurata was found on flowers with the scarabs Protaetia cuprea, Protaetia morio and Trichius zonatus, together with others that included the longhorns Stictoleptura cordigera with its attractive red body, and heart-shaped black markings (fig 5), and the similar Stenurella bifasciata. The arborescent heath with its evergreen oaks between Bocognano and Tavera proved to be a rich locality and by beating, and sweeping a good number of beetles were taken, such as the rare weevil Cleonus tabidus (Curculionoidea).
Figure 5. Stictoleptura cordigera. Col de Vizzavona July 2015.
Figure 6. Cetonia aurata blue form Col de Vizzavona July 2015.
Figure 7. Rocky ridge below the Monte d, Oro. Habitat of Corsican endemic and other butterflies. July 2015.
A meeting with Corsican Bandits 1893.
Bocognano was well known for its association with perhaps the most famous of the Corsican bandits Jacques Bonelli (1832-1896) and his brother Antoine Bonelli (1827-1907). Antoine already a wanted man for attempting to assassinate the mayor of Bocognano for refusing to marry his sister, was soon joined in the Maquis by brother Jacques, who also attempted to kill the major before leaving the village, wounding him in the legs. The outlaws were soon joined by others of their clan. The Bonelli brothers then killed two rivals on the same day and were sentenced in absentia in March 1854 to the death penalty for the second time. In 1856 they killed an informant who was accompanied by two gendarmes, which they are spared. Between September 1886 and the month of January 1887, the authorities launched a vast police operation against the Maquis Bellacoccia as they were known. The village of Bocognano was occupied by the police and reprisals were taken against the villages and some are imprisoned on the grounds of helping the criminals, and their livestock is seized. The deployment of force only added to the notoriety enjoyed by bandits. After 44 years in the Maquis, Antoine surrendered in June 1892 on the Vizzavona Pass, after a short trial he was pardoned and ordered to leave Corsica, but after ten weeks he is allowed to return from France. There will be no pardon for Jacques who remains an outlaw until his death.
Standen records in 1893 " before leaving England we were gravely cautioned to beware of brigands ; whereas, so far as we could learn, this particular rascal does not exist in Corscia at all events. Certainly we were daily in solitudes most favourable for his exploits, but he let us severely alone. The fact is, in their code of morals, the outlaw or bandit, is looked as a noble fellow ; the robber, or brigand as a miserable weak kneed skunk. We found the peasants almost invariably polite, good-natured and hospitable." Standen records that Antoine Bonelli now a mountain guide, called on the English at the hotel with a bouquet picked from his village garden.
Standen departed Corsica at Ajaccio on the 25 June with Albert Jones and a few days later Champion left on the 28 June. On the 12 July a meeting had been arranged for some of those English entomologists still at Vizzavona to visit Jacques Bonelli in his mountain hideout at Bocognano. The party visiting the outlaw comprised of Margaret Fountaine, her sister Rachel, a Miss Neil, Reginald Jones, Raine, Yerbury and Lemann. Fountaine gave full details in her diary of meeting Jacques Bonelli, which was reproduced in the book Love Among the butterflies by W.F. Carter (1980). Fountaine wrote " And now, beneath the shadows of the rocks, with the July sun pouring down, he sits, a broad, well-built man with a hard handsome face, apparently at ease ; but armed to the teeth. In that wandering restless eye a close observer will detect that he is always on the alert, though scouts have been dispatched to watch for gendarmes, by old Marthe, our guide. The whole proceeding was a very rash one, however delightful ; I drank with Jacques myself, and sometimes in the quieter walks of life I love to look back upon that wild mountain scene, the outlaw and his clan, the savage dogs who prowled about among the grey rocks and the purple heather ... it makes a sharp contrast to the dull quiet of an English Home". She picked a sprig of heather, pressed it and added it her diary as a memento. Yerbury she noted looked upon Jacques as a "red handed villain who had no wish to worship as a hero". Yerbury seemed rather bored with the event, adding just a few words in his diary " walked on to the Brigand's den, saw the outlaw and walked back to Bocognano, walk hot and interesting". Despite Fountaine's assertion in her book that Jacques Bonelli and his Clan had killed at least 6 or 7 gendarmes, from information she had from the locals, not a single policeman are said to have been killed by them on the island, according to recently posted online history source.
The Fountaine sisters left for Switzerland shortly after meeting with Bonelli and Frederick Lemann left Corscia on 16 July and William Nicholson departed 23 July. Yerbury who seemed to enjoy the insect collecting in Corsica stayed on, now often accompanied by Frederic Raine and Dr Trotter. Chandler (2014) gives furthers details of Yerbury's travels in Corsica from his diaries, held at the Oxford University Museum. On 16 August Yerbury left Vizzavona and travelled to Corte and took the wild road to Calacuccia to Evisa, staying there for a week, hunting insects in the Forest of Aitone, where he captured a new fly in numbers at water mint and higher in the mountains took a new Robber-fly, a species of Laphria (Asilidae). He spent a night in a hotel at Piana, recording it was " beastly, fleas galore", before returning to Vizzavona via Ajaccio. Yerbury later left Corsica at Bastia on 1 September with Raine, staying with him for two weeks collecting at his home at Hyeres, with excursions to La Crau and Carqueiranne.
Figure 8. A late 19th Corsican postcard showing Antoine Boinnelli.
Margaret Fountaine at Luri & Evisa Corsica 1907.
During her her second visit to Corsica from May to July 1907, instead of re-visiting Vizzavona and Ajaccio, that was increasingly visited by most British continental collectors, she based herself at Luri in Cap Corse and at Evisa a village at 850 meters in the Corse-du-Sud. She found Luri in Cap Corse the best for spring collecting, where she stayed in the small two-bedroom Hotel de France. The very local Euchloe insularis, which is an endemic of Corsica and Sardinia was first taken by Fountaine on the 5 May at Luri at the Col de Sant below Seneca's Tower at 381 meters. On the southern slopes of the mountains at Luri, with the help of Bersa, her affectionate name for her Syrian companion Khalil Neimy, she took 14 specimens of E. insularis, waiting because of their rapid flight for them to feed at the wild rosemary flowers, when they were most easily netted. She was unsuccessful in discovering the eggs or larva. The species was rare at Evisa in June but still in good condition. P. hospiton was first captured on the 8 May on the Col de la Serra (315 meters) at Cagnano, but out of four specimens only one was worth keeping; she suggested at these lower levels it would be on the wing as early as April. At Evisa the butterfly was rare and the greater number was also found to be damaged.
Figure 9. Margaret Fountaine aged 50 in 1912.
Figure 10. Old postcard of Evisa.
Figure 11. Old postcard of The Hotel Gigli at Evisa, where Margaret Fountaine stayed with Khalil Neimy in 1907.
Fountaine wrote of Evisa " is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen, close to the borders of the great Forest of Aitone on one side, and on the other looking over chains of rugged mountains towards the sea and sunset." The Hotel Gigli was most agreeable, clean and comfortable, and the proprietor was most helpful in making his guests feel welcome. Aglais ichnusa another endemic of Corsica and Sardinia was first seen at Luri on 16 May and at Evisa in June it was plentiful, where any amount of the larva could be collected on the stinging nettles, but she found that the mature full fed ones were nearly all stung by ichneumon wasps, and that it was best to collect batches of very young larva to breed. A. eliza appeared in great profusion in the Forest of Aitone towards the end of June, flying with A. paphia immaculata, the dark female form of that species valezina and A. pandora. On the Col de Vergio at 1,478 m A. eliza was plentiful in July, as was P. argus corsicus.
Above the sandstone plateau of La Piana on the rocky ridges of the arbutus clothed mountains, Margaret hunted Charaxes jasius with her former dragoman Khalil, with whom she had formed a strong personal attraction, writing " all through the scorching heat of the mid-summer days C. jasius romps and gambols with his fellows", so much so she had difficulty in getting pristine examples. Here C. jasius occurred with Hipparchia aristaeus,Coenonympha corinna, Hipparchia neomiris and Lasiommata paramegaera. She had captured a nice aberration of L. paramegaera (that she referred to as Pararge megaera tigellius) on the 24 May at Luri that had the black apical forewing spot twice the normal size. Before leaving Corsica Fountaine found that a brood of the endemic skipper Spialia therapne had emerged at Calacuccia on the 25 July, previously it had only been found many weeks before in May at Luri and Corte. It was while she was setting her bred specimens of newly hatched A. ichnusa, a telegram arrived informing her that her mother had died and she soon left for England.
Figure 12. Aglais ichnusa. Specimen bred from Corte by H.C. Playne in 1897 and one taken by R.S. Standen in 1893 at Vizzavona. Oxford University Museum collections.
Figure 13. The British continued to visit the Vizzavona area. A pair of Plebejus argus corsicus from Tattone, collected by Reverend Frank Edward Lowe (1853-1918) in 1914. Ex Henry Rowland-Brown coll. Oxford University Museum collections.
Today there are a few more buildings on the Col de Vizzavona, but little else has changed and all the butterfly species that many British entomologists came to collect still thrive there. Sitting in the open restaurant of the timeless Hotel Monte d, Oro enjoying cool drinks in 2015, after searching for butterflies on the sun-baked slopes above the pass, it was easy to imagine that party of British collectors doing exactly the same here 122 years previously. Down in the hamlet of Vizzavona, the ruin of Grand Hotel de la Foret dominates, a reminder of when it was a busy tourist spot. Those rich meadows much frequented by British collectors at Tattone, situated a few miles from Vizzavona along the road to Corte have gone, being replaced by buildings, a reminder that nothing is static in an ever changing world.
References.
Bellier de la Chavignerie J.E. 1862. Varities Nouvelles De Lepidopteres. Annales de la Société Entomologique de France. p.p. 615- 616
Carter W.F. 1980. Love among the Butterflies. The Travels and Adventures of a Victorian Lady Margaret Fountaine. Collins, London.
Chandler P. J. 2014. Dr John Henry Wood and Colonel John William Yerbury - their different lives as dipterists. Dipterists Digest Volume 21 Supplement.
Marshall T. A. 1871. Notes on Some Corsican insects. The Entomologist's Monthly Magazine. 7: 225-228. 248-250..
Marshall T. A. 1872. Notes on Some Corsican insects. The Entomologist's Monthly Magazine 8: 191-193.
Champion G.C. 1894. An Entomological Excursion to Corsica. Transactions of the Entomological Society of London. pp. 225-242.
Fountaine M.E. 1907. A Few Notes on Some Corsican Butterflies. The Entomologist 40: 100-103.
Standen R. S. 1893. Among the butterflies in Corsica. The Entomologist 26: 236-238, 259-263.
