30 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



NOTES FEOM CAIRO. 

 By F. W. Sowerby, F.E.S., Lieut., E.N.D. 



(Continued from p. 11.) 



On July 30th I joined Mr. Storey, of the Entomological 

 Department in the Ministry of Agriculture, for an expedition to 

 collect some of the inaects which occur solely on the land where 

 the desert joins the cultivated valley of the Nile. We met at 

 Badreshein, and rode towards the Sakkara pyramids by the 

 usual tourist track, through two or three miles of fairly thick 

 date palms, past the ruins of Memphis and the colossi of 

 Rameses II. Flying round one of the latter I came across the 

 pretty Cetoniid, C. savignyi. 



On arriving at a watering place, where the desert abruptly 

 meets the palms and cultivation, we left our animals and started 

 collecting, moving in the direction of the " Step Pyramid." 



On the desert itself we came across no living thing whatever, 

 but on the edge I added quite a lot of uncommon insects to my 

 list. The first species which attracted our attention were big 

 wasps (Bembecidae) of the genus Stizus. Flying along a small 

 bank were numbers of the bright yellow Stizus succineus and 

 yellow and black S. bizonatus, and among them I caught one 

 specimen of a third, possibly new, species. Along this bank, 

 also, were a lot of little Chrysids, of various kinds and glittering 

 colours, very difficult to catch owing to their rapid fiigiit and the 

 dazzling sun. Here also I obtained Sphex prainosas, Ammophila 

 tydei, Trypoxylon attenuata, Beinhex lusca (a series), and one or 

 two other Hymenoptera. 



Walking through the rough herbage produced Cordistes sp. 

 and other Asilidse, the fine grasshoppers S piling onotus savignyi, 

 S. ccBridans, and a larger, paler species or form of the latter, 

 and the Myrmeleon figured by Savigny on Plate III, 14, for 

 which I could not find a name. With these were a lot of the 

 commoner grasshoppers found also in the other localities. 



The bulk of the day's catch was taken at a patch of melons 

 flowering in the full sun. As well as species found commonly 

 elsewhere, the following Hymenoptera were secured : Myzine 

 sp. no v. ? (one), Ceratina tarsata, Anthidium ferrugineum v. 

 thoracicum, Anthopliora sp., Coelonites fischeri, Odynerns cldoro- 

 ticus, Pomjjihis sp., Mii^cophus ctenopiis, Notogonia puinpiliformis, 

 Dielis collaris, and NototracJiys foliator (one), most of them in 

 large numbers. Other orders were not well represented, and the 

 only specimens taken were the Coleoptera Mylahris apicipenniSy 

 Epilachna chrysomelina, and Coccinella 11-punctata. 



The day's bag was completed with Grylbis domestlcus and a 

 few ants and beetles taken on the bare sand near a well where 

 we had our lunch. Except for one specimen each of a very 

 small Gymnopleurus and a Cionus (?), the Coleoptera, as might 

 be expected, were Tenebrionidse : large numbers of the common 



