200 CASUALS IN THE CAUCASUS 



with his kiUing bottle. He caught every common 

 insect he saw, in terror lest he let some rarity escape. 

 Yellow, green, white, brown, tiny ones, big ones, swift 

 fliers, slow fliers, all were moths who fell into his net. 

 I don't know anything about insect-hunting myself, 

 except the A B C of the science forced upon all travel- 

 lers, but it must be powerfully attractive. It is an 

 absolute fact that in the midst of an exciting chase after 

 a tur hit only in the near fore-leg, Kenneth left me to 

 pursue the wounded animal the while he tried to add 

 a coveted moth to his collection. He bagged the 

 wretched thing, and I got my tur. Imagine setting 

 moth-hunting against that of ibex, and the former 

 coming in first at the winning-post ! 



To make it all sound very important, my cousin 

 always called his moths by their scientific names. 

 The particular beastie was called " Geometra pap- 

 ilionaria," but I don't think the poor thing knew it, 

 for the little face looked singularly peaceful as the 

 insect sat pinioned in a collecting-box. 



The very quaintest of spiders with the very longest of 

 fore-legs had homes in the fir trees in the valley bottoms. 

 They disported themselves on slack wires running from 

 one branch to another, and if you frightened one it pre- 

 tended to be dead by suddenly dropping to the ground 

 on a long thread, where it lay apparently lifeless, with 

 outstretched arms and flabby body. Even if you 

 turned him over, the quaint insect kept up the pretence. 

 Cecily told Ali that these were certainly the largest 

 spiders we had seen in the country, and he said they 

 were likely to be, when you took into consideration the 



