166 [July, 



at no tiaie a varied or copious fauna. Tet certain districts, and 

 especially the edge of the deserts round Cairo, will compare (I believe), 

 if visited at the proper time, not unfavourably even with Biskra itself 

 in entomological interest. Specimens may be less abundant, but I 

 question whether species are so. Such wai my experience a few years 

 ago, and even this year I found our work near Cairo amply remunera- 

 tive. It was when we went further and penetrated to Luxor and 

 Assouan that we fared worse. 



I will now give a sort of abridgment of the diary I kept, so far 

 as it deals with matters entomological. 



We left Trieste on March 8th in bitterly cold weather, reached 

 Alexandria on the 12th, and at once took the train to Cairo. M. Pic 

 began business directly we landed, capturing I know not what 

 Coleoptera big and small in the Alexandria Railway Station. The 

 rest of us, I believe, and certainly I myself, first took the field 

 next day (March 13th). We all went by train to Marg, a few- 

 miles east of Cairo, and there dispersed as they thought fit. Dr. 

 Schmiedeknecht and I walked slowly back towards Cairo, keeping near 

 the railway and searching the fields and embankments beside it. It 

 was a dull, windy day, yet we were delighted with our captures, which 

 included such " rara et rarissima" as Nectanehus Fischeri, Spin., and 

 Masm-is vespifonnis, F. I had met with neither of these when I was 

 in Egypt before, but during the present tour both turned up 

 repeatedly, and I believe we have brought back more specimens of 

 both than were to be found before in all the museums of Europe put 

 together. 



The next two days gave me no opportunities for collecting. On 

 March 16th we were at Luxor, and visited the Tombs of the Kings, 

 the ruins of Thebes, &c. During the day we did a little collecting in 

 the intervals of archaeology, and I found a curious tiny wasp — pro- 

 bably a new species of Quartinia — pretty freely on Senecio. March 

 17th, we visited Karnac. March 18th, Thebes again, and the famous 

 Memnon statue, near which Senecio occurred again and more of my 

 little Quartinia (?). On both these days we picked up specimens now 

 and again, as opportunity arose, and some of them proved interesting. 

 But there was so much to see and do, apart from entomology, that the 

 latter fell somewhat into the background. 



March 19th we spent on the railway, faring slowly to Assouan in 

 what was by no means a train-de-luxe. There we stayed a few days 

 visiting the islands of Elephantine and Philfe, the new Barrage, the 

 First Cataract, and so forth — all very interesting, but entomologically 

 almost wholly unproductive. 



