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V. 0)1 the Butterflies of Bulgaria. By Henry John 

 Elwes, F.R.S., F.L.S., etc. 



[Read April 4th, 1900.] 



Plate IV. 



No country in Europe has been so little explored from an 

 entomological point of view as the great central mountain 

 range which forms the southern frontier between East 

 Rumelia, Bulgaria and Macedonia, and is known at its 

 northern end in Turkish as the Rilo Dagh, or in the Sclav, 

 languages as Rilo Planina, and fartlier south and east as the 

 Rliodope Mountains, or Despoto Dagli. 



As far as I know the only collector of Lepidoptera who 

 has ever been there is Herr Josef Haberhauer, who in 1801 

 and 1862 collected in the Balkans, and whose collections 

 are described by Lederer in the Wiener Monatschrift, 1863, 

 p. 17. Haberhauer has for the last few years resided at 

 Slivno in East Rumelia and has collected in that neigh- 

 bourhood, but has published no catalogue of the Lepidop- 

 tera. He made a short trip to the Rilo Dagh about twenty- 

 five years ago, but no account of what he collected there 

 has been published, and he has now little recollection of 

 what he found. Thirty years ago I made my first expe- 

 dition to Bulgaria as an ornithologist, and published a 

 catalogue of the birds of Turkey in conjunctiun with Mr. 

 T. E. Buckley (Ibis, 1870, pp. 59 ct scq.). When this year I 

 found that Mrs. NichoU, whose ardour in the pursuit of 

 butterflies has been well shown by her recent journeys in 

 Spain and Bosnia, was willing to join me I determined to 

 revisit the country. As, however, I was unable to leave 

 England till the middle of June, Mrs. NichoU spent a 

 fortnight with Herr Haberhauer at Slivno, and made a 

 short trip to Rilo Monastir before I arrived at Sofia.* As 

 I knew from former experience that camping out was 

 the only way in which the higher mountains could be 

 explored with any comfort wo took tents and camp outfit 

 from Eugland, and though there are villages at the foot 



* Mrs. NiclioU has given a good account of the journey in the 

 Entomologist's Record for February and March 1900. 



TRANS. ENT. SOC. LOND. 1900. — PART II. (JuLY) Vo 



