220 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



NOTES ON LEPIDOPTERA FROM THE MEDITERRANEAN. 

 By T. B. Fletcher, R.N., F.E.S. 



Some little time ago Messrs. G. F. Matliew and P. de la Garde 

 published in the 'Entomologist' (xxxi. 77 et seq., and xxxii. 8) 

 a list of Lepidoptera captured on the Mediterranean Station, 

 which proved so interesting to me that I have been led to hope 

 that a list of my own captures out here may prove as interesting 

 to others, more especially as of late years there seems to have 

 been a considerable increase in the study of extra-British species. 

 The present paper covers the worst portion of the year, so there 

 are few captures noted ; but I intend, if the Editor will allow 

 space, to continue to record the species met with from time to time. 



We left England on October 18th, and arrived at Gibraltar 

 on the 23rd, coaling the same day, and leaving early next 

 morning. I did not land, but a specimen of Agrotis segetum 

 came on board to light in the evening. 



We arrived at Nauplia, in Greece, on the 28th, and stayed 

 there ten days. On November 1st I went ashore and walked 

 out to Argos ; it was a blazing hot afternoon, and a long and 

 dusty road. Everything seemed burnt up after the summer 

 heats, but there were several butterflies about, including Danais 

 chrysippus, Pyrameis cardui and atalanta, Eurymus (Colias) edusa, 

 Pieris hrassica, and several little "blues" and Coenonymphas. 

 A Macroglossa stellatanim, also, which had been rash enough to 

 fly on board, was caught and brought to me. On November 6th 

 we left for Malta, arriving next day, and stayed till the 17th, 

 when we left again for a cruise in the Levant. On the 19th, 

 when off Crete, another M. stellatarum came on board ; we were 

 a good twenty-five miles distant from land, but this seems a 

 species with a strong predilection for wandering, and great 

 powers of long and sustained flight. 



On November 21st we arrived at Limasol, in Cyprus, and 

 next day I landed with a net to see what was to be found on the 

 wing. It was rough walking, there being practically no path, 

 and the fields full of dead and burnt-up thistles and other plants 

 even more prickly ; these composed practically all the under- 

 growth, though there were numbers of scattered ilex trees. 

 Further up, on the hills, there was more vegetation, a little 

 grass and heath and clumps of bushes. Doubtless the country 

 is green in the spring, but now everything was withered and 

 scorched by the summer sun, and all the fields were bare, as 

 the crops had been gathered in. Under these circumstances, 

 butterflies were chiefly conspicuous by their absence, the only 

 specimens seen being one Pieris and a few Pyrameis cardui — not 

 a single moth or larva. 



We left Limasol on the 23rd, and visited Larnaka, Beyrout, 



