32^^ THE ektomologist's eeoord, 



ceHsyi ? (lower down). Next day I tried the low vineyards south- 

 west of the town, hoping to catch a good series of M. larissa, but the 

 day was unfavourable and I met with no success. I took a beautiful 

 Chariclea treitschkii, sitting on a stalk of grass. This beautiful insect is 

 not uncommon at Slivno. Haberhauer rears a great many for sale, as 

 well as C. deljjhinii and C. victorina, and it was a daily pleasure to see them 

 stretching their lovely wings as they emerged from the moss in his pupa- 

 case. June 3rd we tried the lower slopes of Tschatalka again, in hopes 

 of getting more specimens of P. cMorodyce, but I only caught two, and 

 saw two others which I failed to secure. It is a fast butterfly, and flies 

 very like P. callidice, a delightful insect to catch — if you can. It is 

 generally common in these little glens. Haberhauer tells me that he 

 has sometimes taken as many as 100 specimens during the first week 

 of June, but 1899 was a bad year for the locality, on account of the 

 devastation caused by a waterspout in June, 1898, which tore up much 

 of the hillside and destroyed the larv». We also entirely failed to 

 find S. cinarae, which is generally to be had in the same locality, but 

 never in any abundance. Haberhauer generally gets five or six speci- 

 mens in the course of the season. June 4th was my last day at Slivno. 

 I now rather regret that I did not stay a few days longer, as I think I 

 might have secured a better series of P. chlorodyce, M. larissa, and L. 

 serniargus var. parnassits. But I fully expected to find all these insects 

 again in the Kilo Dagh and Ehodope, being quite unaware of the cold 

 and rainy climate that prevails in these high frontier mountains of 

 Bulgaria, where the weather rather resembles that of the Bavarian 

 Alps than what one might expect to find in lat. 42°. I went to the 

 vineyards south-west of the town, and took seven good specimens of 

 M. larissa (all darker than those I got in Hercegovina) , besides a few 

 T. cerisyi ? and a Sesia or two. A long and wearisome railway 

 journey brought me back to Sofia on June 5th, and the next day was 

 fully occupied with arrangements for an excursion to the great 

 monastery of the Rilo, one of the oldest and richest foundations of 

 Bulgaria, situated about forty miles due south of Sofia, close on the 

 Turkish frontier. It takes a good two days' journey to get there from 

 Sofia whichever road you may take, as you have to get round or over 

 the steepest and wildest mass of mountain in the whole country. We 

 took a carriage and drove there in two days by Dubnica and the valley 

 of the Struma, the road often very bad, and the hill country not par- 

 ticularly interesting as far as Dubnica, where we slept at a tolerable 

 *' hau," or inn. I saw no insects of any interest, except one fine specimen 

 of C. dispar var. rutilus, which I caught in the Struma Valley. I saw 

 iseveral more of these, but did not stop to catch them. The drive from 

 Dubnica down the Struma to the town of Rilo was again dull, but 

 after turning up the valley of the Rilska (a tributary of the Struma) 

 we came into fine scenery, and saw a good many insects, T. cerisyi 

 among them. Haberhauer had formerly taken it in quantity around 

 Dubnica, which he considers to be its probable western limit. On the 

 road I took L. amanda and one L. semiaryus var. 2)(i>'>i(tssus, but not as 

 well marked as those I got at Slivno. We followed the valley of the 

 Eilska about ten miles up from its junction with the Struma before we 

 reached the monastery, which stands about 4000 feet above the sea in 

 a very steep and narrow valley, cut like a trench, through a mass of 

 granite ridges, which rise in precipices to a height of 8000 feet close 



