IN SEARCH OF RUSSIAN BUTTERFLIES. 241 
carpeted with a very luxurious growth of flowers, and it is one of 
the most prolific localities for butterflies I have ever seen; the 
nearest approach to it I know is the famous wood at Pészer, 
near Budapest, to which it is very similar in many respects. 
Amongst the brilliant and interesting flowers growing here were 
fine bushes of the common garden plant Gypsophila paniculata, 
and the almost equally well known Thalictrum flavum; these 
two plants were especially attractive to the Theclade, four 
species of which I, on one occasion, saw on a plant of G. pani- 
culata. In the glades, too, Melitaea trivia swarmed, and a little 
earlier Canonympha leander and Parnassius mnemosyne were 
equally abundant. In this wood Pararge clymene, so rare in 
Central Europe, was an abundant butterfly ; and many others, 
the names of which alone would make the mouth of a lepidop- 
terist water, were to be found in profusion. 
Perhaps more striking even than the Lepidoptera in this 
wood, and in fact in the whole district, were the birds. Golden 
orioles fluted in every tree; brilliant bee-eaters hovered overhead ; 
still more brilliant rollers performed their curious aerial antics; 
hoopoes in dozens, unmistakable in plumage and in note, were 
there; amongst the Raptores, particularly noticeable were the 
buzzards, many scores of pairs of which were breeding in the 
‘*Tschapurnik Wald”’’; one small oak copse, crowning a eminence, 
which had been defoliated by the larve of Tortrix viridana, had 
the appearance of a rookery, so thickly were the trees crowded 
with the old and new nests of this species. Hobbies, kestrels, 
goshawks, and at least three species of day-flying owls swarmed 
everywhere. The whole formed the most extraordinary assem- 
blage of bird life I have ever seen, and one which it would be 
difficult to equal anywhere. 
Other excellent ground was a series of cross valleys, in the 
main face of the range of hills, some few miles to the north-west 
of Sarepta, and in the direction of the large town of Tsaritsyn, 
which is some twenty miles distant. 
These cross valleys had on their lower slopes a good deal of 
wood, with which the bottoms were generally filled, and in them 
were found much the same species as in the ‘‘T'schapurnik 
Wald,” in addition to which they were the headquarters in the 
district of Neptis lucilla, Melanargia var. suwarovius, Hesperia 
tessellum, Lycaena arion, and Polyommatus amandus. 
There are cross valleys in the hills opposite Sarepta also, but 
these are much inferior in flora and fauna to those above- 
mentioned, and we found them hardly worth investigating. 
The magnificent hornet-like parasitic hymenopteron, Scolia 
flavifrons, was abundant everywhere on flowers. 
Lepidoptera were distinctly local, and it entailed a great deal 
of hard work in prospecting to get a fair idea of the district 
fauna; probably this was the reason why we did not see certain 
