MAY 7 1800 



JOURNAL OF VARIATION. 



Vol. XII. No. 2. February 15th, 1900. 



Bulgarian Butterflies. 



By MARY DE LA B. NICHOLL, F.E.S. 



Bulgaria is a very interesting district to the collector, as it has 

 scarcely been explored at all by western entomologists, and the higher 

 mountains are generally difficult of access. The people are quiet and 

 civil, brigandage being practically extinct ; but I could not have travelled 

 in the remoter regions of the Ehodope alone ; and the success of the 

 expedition is entirely due to Mr. H. J. Elwes, to whose experience of 

 camping out in wild places, and amongst rough people, I OAve the 

 pleasantest and the most original tour that I have ever accomplished. 

 As, however, Mr. Elwes could not leave England before the middle of 

 June I collected alone in the moro accessible parts of the country for 

 nearly a month before he joined me. I had letters of introduction to 

 Mr, Elliot, our Minister in Bulgaria, to Mr. Freeman, our Vice-Consul 

 at Sofia, and Dr. Lever kiihn, the very capable head of the museum 

 at Sofia. This is a most interesting and well arranged institution, 

 and contains good local collections of the birds and fishes of Bulgaria. 

 It deserves the attention of any naturalist visiting Sofia, though the 

 Rhopalocera are scarcely represented there (excepting such as are 

 destructive to trees or plants). Prince Ferdinand has, I believe, a fine 

 collection of butterflies, but that remains at Vienna. From these 

 three gentlemen I received much kindness and useful information, and 

 from the Bulgarian Government I had an " open order," which we 

 several times found useful in difficulties. 



May 21st I made an excursion with a local entomologist to a 

 village in the valley of the Ister, on the south-eastern slopes of the 

 Vitoch. This is a great mountain, over 6000 feet high, rising rather 

 abruptly due south of Sofia — a long flat-topped mass of granite, with 

 slopes well clothed with wood, looking as if it ought to be good collect- 

 ing ground, which, however, is not the case, the list of local butterflies 

 being rather a scanty one. We hunted some rough dry slopes behind 

 the village, too much cultivated and too hardly grazed to be very pro- 

 ductive, and then came down into good wet fields. I give the principal 

 items of our bag, as it was the only occasion on which I collected 

 near Sofia : — Parnassius mnemosyne, Pieris napi, Colias edusa, Thecla 

 rubi, Ckrysophanus dorilis, C. thersamon, C. phlaeas, Lycaena argiades, 

 L. icarus, L. bellargus, L. aegon, L. semiargus, L. astrarche, Pyrameis 

 cardui, Syrichthus malvae, S. alveus, and several of the commoner 

 Melitseas, &c.; all these tolerably plentiful. 



