66 THE entomologist's eecord. 



the Rhodope (and probably of the Balkan peninsula). The difficulties 

 of travelling in these valleys are much increased by their extraordinary 

 steepness, they usually run north and south, like deep trenches cut in 

 the granite, separated by high and very precipitous ridges, quite 

 impracticable for baggage animals, so that to pass from one valley to 

 another it is necessary to descend to the foothills, or to cross the pass 

 at the head of the valley into Turkish territory, which we could not 

 do, because we had failed to get permission to travel in Macedonia. 

 Could we have worked the southern slopes, we might probably have 

 found better weather, and a greater variety of insects. Before leaving 

 camp on July 6th we hunted the mountain slopes immediately above 

 us, and took E. tyndarus in some numbers, it was almost exactly 

 similar to the specimens taken by me last year on the Bosnian 

 mountains, nearly approaching to var. ottomana, very large and bright, 

 and the under side of the hindwings much tinged with reddish-broAvn. 

 Riding doAvn the valley we got nothing new till we reached the mouth 

 of the gorge, where we had formerly encamped, and here we found a 

 good many butterflies. P. apoUo, just out, 0. lujale, C. murmidonc 

 (type and var. cdha), E. ligea, quite fresh, M. trivia, A. hecate 5 (rather 

 worn), L. cumedon, L. avion, C. ipMs, C. avcania, and many other 

 common things. We reached Samakov rather late, and found that 

 old Haberhauer had broken his shin, and wanted to go home and nurse 

 it — which was rather inconvenient, as it left us with only one man 

 (the cook) who could speak German and interpret for us. However, 

 we fortunately found a young Bulgarian, a pupil of the Anglo-American 

 Mission at Samakov, who not only spoke English well, but had a taste 

 for natural history, and collected insects in a somewhat primitive 

 fashion. We engaged him as interpreter, and spent all the next day 

 (which was stormy) getting horses, guide, &c., at Samakov. At night 

 we drove up to a little, bran-new, summer lodging establishment, 

 about seven miles from the town, prettily situated in the forest that 

 clothes the southern slopes of Musalla. 



July 8th was grey and stormy, and we could do no collecting till the 

 afternoon, when we went out along some open ridges in the surround- 

 ing woods, and found very good ground, and some variety in butterflies, 

 our best take being L. croides, in excellent order. E. liijea was just 

 out, also L. aet/on, E. hypevanthus, A. dia, M. galathea (rather dark), 

 M. aurelia, &c. July 9th was another stormy day, so we did not go 

 into camp, but pottered around Camkurje which is a very good place 

 for collecting, but the weather was too bad for us to do it justice. E. 

 liqea and E. euryale were common, and we took S. sidae and many 

 common fritillaries, in gleams of sunshine. On the 10th the weather 

 looked better, so we started for the Marica valley, which we reached 

 after a long and lovely ride across the mountains, descending by a 

 steeply terraced track to our camping-place — we had great difficulty in 

 finding any open place large enough, and flat enough, for our tents. 

 We saw no remarkable butterflies all this day ; and never passed any 

 inhabited dwelling. Our horses were stampeded about midnight, 

 probably by a bear, but they could not go far in the thick forest and 

 no damage was done. Next day broke fine and clear, and we proceeded 

 up the valley, which continued for miles, deep, narrow, thickly wooded, 

 and totally uninhabited. We passed several sawmills, but they were 

 deserted as the harvest was going on. It looked like excellent ground 



