60 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



A FEW NOTES ON SOME OF THE BUTTERFLIES OF 

 SYRIA AND PALESTINE. 



By Margaket E. Fountaine, F.E.S. 



Though I spent four months (from April 5th to August 3rd) 

 in these two countries during the past summer, my success 

 entomologically was anything but unprecedented, possibly the 

 many counter interests of the places I visited may in some 

 degree account for this ; but at the same time I cannot describe 

 Syria or Palestine, with the exception of one or two favoured 

 spots, as countries in which butterflies might be said to abound. 

 This is, I think, easily accounted for by the excessive aridity and 

 absolute bareness of most of the mountains, which I can only 

 describe as treeless, shrubless, and flowerless wastes, with large 

 rocks and stones strewn everywhere in profuse abundance, even 

 in the narrow strips of cultivated ground, generally appropriated 

 for the cultivation of wheat or barley ; indeed, I have seen the 

 furrows of a cornfield entirely composed of loose stones, no sign 

 of earth being visible, but a scanty crop was struggling on 

 towards a mean and miserable harvest notwithstanding. Yet it 

 is in these cornfields, choked with weeds, that (as Mrs. NichoU 

 remarked) the butterflies often seek a refuge, and places that in 

 Europe would be passed over as most unlikely to be productive 

 of anything worth netting would be the very spots that in Syria 

 one would make for in desperation as the only alternative to an 

 absolutely barren wilderness. 



However, in the month of April I had an excellent fortnight's 

 collecting in the neighbourhood of Ain Zahalta (a village in the 

 Lebanon), though the weather some days was not altogether 

 desirable. The country round Beyrout, too, especially up the 

 Nahr-el-Kelb, or Dog Eiver, was on the whole far from dis- 

 appointing. In May I visited Damascus; and at the end of that 

 month I found myself at Baalbek, a place of immense archaeo- 

 logical interest, but where I did practically no collecting worth 

 mentioning. From June 4th to June 11th I was at Bsherreh, 

 collecting in the neighbourhood of the Cedars. And on June 26th 

 I started from Damascus to take the overland route to Jerusalem 

 on horseback, arriving on July 6th. The heat was terrific, but 

 I managed to do a certain amount of collecting on the way, 

 much to the annoyance of the mukari, who finally ended in 

 expressing his disapprobation by smashing my net to pieces, 

 presumably by accident (?), but was greatly dismayed when, on 

 being ordered by my courier to unload the baggage horse, 

 another equally well-appointed net was produced from one of my 

 valises, the which he was told that if, when consigned to his 

 care, it should be either torn, lost, or broken, he should receive 



