The Balearic Islands appear to offer a good field to the entomologist. A friend who visited Majorca during February has given me this list of the butterflies and moths that, even at that early season, he saw in plenty, mostly within a few miles of Palma: Bath White, Cabbage or Common White, Red Admiral, Painted Lady, Clouded Yellow, Brimstone, Wall Brown, Holly Blue, Small Copper, Swallow Tail, and the Humming-bird Hawk Moth.
As the spring advanced and the giant poppies I had sown in November became a four-feet-high hedge, butterflies—strange, to me at least, and very beautiful—fluttered into the little garden of the Casa Tranquila, and probably not finding the poppies so luscious as their brilliant appearance had led them to expect, speedily fluttered out again. They did not make their home with us, as had the big locust that, in the late autumn, I captured when he was feasting on a moth in the shrubby field behind the convent. Bringing the prisoner home in my handkerchief, I set him on a pink ivy-geranium that flourished in one of the big green flower-pots on the veranda.
He seemed well content with his new quarters, for there he stayed all winter, taking up his position first in the tall scented verbena, and, when that lost its leaves, changing his perch to an adjacent almond-tree, as though he knew that would be the first to bloom.
Very early in the year he vanished, and we thought he had gone for good. But just as the first pale blossoms were opening in the almond groves he re-appeared, bringing with him the female of his species, and together in connubial amity they shared his old home in the almond-tree. When the pale rose-tinted blossoms had fallen, and the grey-green velvet pods of the young almonds were emerging from the crimson calyxes, the locust and his bride deserted us to seek a wider pasturage.
Though we wandered far from beaten tracks, the sole trace of reptiles encountered was an occasional discarded snakeskin. In Iviza lovely green and golden lizards and highly-varnished toy frogs in all "art" shades abounded, but we saw none of either in Majorca.
Our only insect pests were mosquitoes—who, probably recognizing an alien and attractive flavour in our blood, were a disturbing nocturnal influence until, with the aid of a few yards of mosquito netting, we succeeded in frustrating their knavish tricks. Even by day they were not invariably quiescent; but the mosquito is a gentleman. He always gives warning before attacking an enemy, and when we met in open combat, there was something of the joy of battle in the defence. According to local report, the tenure of his days should have ended with November; but it was not until a fall of the temperature about the middle of January that our assailant withdrew his battalions and left us in peace.
Though our visit was a winter one, the wild flowers were an unfailing source of pleasure. The season was unusually dry, yet I never took a country walk without finding some blossom that was new to me.
When we arrived in October the rocky slopes about Porto Pi were covered by a royal carpet of the purple autumnal crocus. The last of the sea lavender was fading, but horned poppies and chicory were in bloom. It was there, too, that in November we found the curiously shaped brown and green wild arums that are known in America as "Dutchmen's pipes," and locally referred to as frares, whose acquaintance we afterwards made at Andraitx. In April, when we left Majorca, pretty little white and lavender iris starred the ground and rich purple mallows and golden mesembryanthemums covered the rocks of Porto Pi.
The beautiful coast about Cas Catalá had a herbage of its own. Tall flowering heath, a persistently blooming plant with dark blue buttons, and delicate yellow rock roses were, as the months slipped past, succeeded by a fine display of cistus.
Throughout the whole time of our stay a constant succession of sweet lavender blossomed on the grey-green bushes. Asphodel, too, abounded. The first to open was the smaller species, with its rushy foliage and slender spikes of bloom. In January the tall rods of the poet's asphodel rose in such profusion that we were forced to give it place as the typical island flower. Forced reluctantly, I confess, for to some the odour of the tall asphodel, when growing in quantity, is far from pleasant.