IN SEARCH OF RUSSIAN BUTTERFLIES. 241 



carpeted with a very luxurious growth of flowers, aud 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 Peszer, 

 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 Gijpsopldla paniculata, 

 and the almost equally well known llialictrum fiavum ; these 

 two plants were especially attractive to the Thecladse, 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 Ccenonympha 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 larvae 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 "Tschapurnik 

 Wald," in addition to which they were the headquarters in the 

 district of Neptis lucilla, Melanargia var. suivarovius, Hesperia 

 tesselliim, Lycaena avion, and Polyommatm 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 

 Jiavifrons, 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 



