A "butterfly summer" in ASIA MINOR. 83 



Prof. Manissajian had also most kindly lent me Dr. Staudin- 

 ger's book on the ' Lepidoptera of Asia Minor,' especially treating 

 of Amasia, where he spent the summer himself some thirty years 

 ago. I took most of the species he mentioned, and in one or two 

 instances, such as Satf/rus bischojfii, I seemed to meet with rather 

 better success. But there were also some he referred to, such as 

 Hespcria alcides, which I never saw at all. A place called Guelly, 

 not more than forty minutes' walk from the town, was capital 

 hunting-ground. But for the Lycsenidfe, and all the " valley " 

 species, the Tschirtschir Valley was the most prolific ; L. hopfferi 

 and L. dolus var. menalcas literally swarmed here towards the 

 end of June and throughout July. The females were much less 

 abundant than the males, and it was extremely difficult to 

 separate the individual species from each other, all having got 

 the white dash, as in L. damon, on the underside, and the mark- 

 ings almost similar. Var. menalcas was comparatively distinct, 

 I thought, for it was always smaller, and there was also a strong 

 family likeness on the under side to the males of that species, 

 which was to me unmistakable. But L. hopfferi and L. poseidon 

 were almost impossible to distinguish (as even the males of those 

 two species were identical underneath), so I have only separated 

 the females of them by the more strongly accentuated venation 

 visible on the upper side of those I consider to be L. poseidon, as 

 there were more like this on the Caraman, where poseidon was 

 the commoner of the two, and very few in the Tschirtschir Valley, 

 where the preponderance of hopfferi was very decided indeed. 

 Added to all this, L. admetus, with an occasional var. ripartii, 

 flew abundantly in the same localities at the same time, to say 

 nothing of L. mithridates, of which last, however, I only suc- 

 ceeded in taking one magnificent male, and one rather doubtful 

 female. 



The Kerasdere (Cherry Valley), which seemed to have been 

 Staudinger's most happy hunting-ground, was always dis- 

 appointing ; so that I could only conclude that during the thirty 

 years which had elapsed since then an increase of cultivation 

 had diminished its attractions from an entomological point of 

 view. 



On the top of the Lokman, three or four hours' ride from the 

 house where I was staying, I found but little in June, and, 

 though I went there at frequent intervals, at the time when 

 Colias anrorina var. libanotica was due to be out, I never saw a 

 sign of it. Staudinger did not seem to have met with much 

 success with this species either, but there it most certainly must 

 occur sometimes, for I saw a pair myself in the museum at Mer- 

 sivan, taken by Prof. Manissajian on this very mountain. Another 

 of my disap[)ointraents was MeliUea aurinia var. orientalis — a 

 most beautiful insect, which I had also seen in that museum — 

 for it appears to lly only in May, and towards the beginning of 



