"Why I feel the absence of the sun so very acutely is because, when the sun is not shining no butterflies, or none worth having, are to be got. Now this is just the time for the Purple Emperors, some specimens of which I want very much to get, and so I have been exceedingly provoked. I found out the place where the P.E.'s were to be found and for the last seven days I have been every day to that place (which is from five to six miles from Salzburg) and there I have waited from twelve to three, through rain and everything else, hoping and hoping for a passing sunbeam, as I could see them every now and then at the tops of the trees, and if the sun had but come out for a few minutes some of them would have been sure to have come down and settled in the road. Well, during all the hours of watching in those seven days the sun never, never, never broke through the clouds for one instant, and each day I returned home more disappointed and more indignant against providence than the day before. I think that if this sort of thing had continued for another week I should have gone into a chronic state of melancholy and moroseness for the rest of my life, and people would have said, 'Ah, he must have had some great disappointment in early life.' These are the sort of things that rile me more than anything else, for you can't think how I put my whole soul into egg and butterfly collecting when I'm at it, and how I boil up and over with impotent rage at not being able to attain the object of my desires on account of the weather over which I have no control. However, perseverance can struggle against anything. This afternoon the sun shone out and I immediately caught two Purple Emperors (_Apatura Iris_), and two very similar butterflies unknown in England (_Apatura Ilia_), also a great many White Admirals (_Limenitis Camilla_), not quite the same as the English White Admiral (_Limenitis Sybilla_), but very like; all butterflies well worth having. If the weather will but continue fine for a few days I will soon make some good additions to my collection, but it is hopeless work collecting butterflies in bad weather. I think I must be set down as a harmless lunatic by the peasants in the neighbourhood already." Selous was not long at Salzburg before he found an old chamois hunter and poacher, with whom he made frequent excursions into the neighbouring mountains. On one of these trips he killed two chamois, and the head of one of these is still in the museum at Worplesdon. The Franco-German war now began and Selous was greatly incensed that the general feeling in England was in favour of Prussia.