RECENT LITERATURE. 939 
February, 1916, we have this entry: “The spring butterflies now 
much in evidence whenever there is a northerly wind, which blows 
them from the district in that quarter, where there is much more 
vegetation than in this stony wilderness.” And again, after the un- 
successful attempt to escape to the seacoast, March lst-6th: “The 
weather is commencing to warm up now. Peculiar-looking bees are 
common, as also Papilio machaon (the yellow swallow-tail butterfly, 
common in the English fen counties), and a very pretty ‘copper’ 
butterfly, with bright-green underside” (probably Thestor ballus). 
“There is also a small kind of cockchafer, and the almost fully-grown, 
but not as yet winged locust.” Captain Gwatkin- Williams has been 
interested for many years in British Lepidoptera, and has, I believe, 
paid special attention to those of the South of Ireland, including 
Canonympha tiphon. We entomologists in particular offer him our 
heartiest sympathy, and congratulations on his escape, trusting that 
the ordeal through which he has passed will not deprive his Country 
of his services in the future, and himself of many days with the 
lepidoptera of more kindly lands. H. R.-B. 
A List of the Butterflies of Egypt, with some Notes on those of the 
Sinai. By Caprain Puiuie Graves, F.E.8. ‘Bulletin Soe. 
Entomologique d’Egypte,’ 1915, pp. 135-157. 
Captain Graves is another of our soldier entomologists who con- 
_tinues his studies war notwithstanding. His “ List of the Butterflies 
of Egypt, and Notes on those of the Sinai,’’ makes special appeal 
at the moment, and incidentally confirms my identification of T'’hestor 
ballus as the Copper with the bright-green underside, noted above 
by Capt. Gwatkin- Williams in the western Mairut Steppe, its only 
Egyptian locality. British collectors, perhaps, will be surprised to 
hear that up to the present Egypt can boast but 31 species of butter- 
flies, two of which— Hesperiids—if not more, owe their discovery to 
Capt. Graves and the late lamented Col. Neville Manders. This lean 
record is attributed by the author chiefly to failure of all but a few to 
establish themselves on desert flora, the irrigation of the fertile parts 
of the Delta, and the enormous preponderance of cultivated plants 
there; though the steppe region from Alexandria to Sollum will 
probably yield additions when peace returns and the borders of the 
Senoussi are reopened to the naturalist. For instance, in the light of 
Capt. Gwatkin- Williams’ remarks, it would seem that P. machaon 
should be eliminated from the list of ‘unexpected absentees,” as 
it appears to extend eastwards from the Senoussi land into Egypt 
proper. The author also draws interesting comparisons between the 
richness of the South Palestine and Sudan fauna, whose frontiers 
march with those of Egypt, supporting the view that the palsarctic 
butterflies of Algeria, or at any rate a part of them, common to the 
northern parts of Asia Minor, spread there from north of the 
Mediterranean and thence across the long submerged Sicilian 
“bridge,” rather than westward vid the littoral of Egypt and North 
Kast Africa. H. R.-B, 
