COLLECTING IN SYRIA. 149 



no "prior claim," but simply and correctly points out that Treitschke's 

 description does not agree with the uniform grey form to which we 

 apply it. Mr. Mansbridge further says that she wishes " to set aside 

 in a breath the authority of Treitschke, Hiibner and Staudinger, on the 

 continent, and Stephens and Tutt, in this country," a statement that 

 suggests that Mr. Mansbridge has not appreciated at all Miss 

 Cochrane's article. She has quoted Treitschke's description, and 

 made a suggestion that I, among others, misused his name, to which I 

 freely and humbly plead guilty. His reference to Hiibner shows that 

 Mr. Mansbridge still fails to grasp the situation. (What has Hiibner 

 done to the subject except duplicate the name of the type?). I am 

 sure Miss Cochrane, like myself, is most conservative in upholding 

 the " authority of Treitschke, Hiibner, Staudinger, Stephens and 

 Tutt," and as she does not deal with their •' authority," but with the 

 application of a certain name, made by some of them, "to certain 

 specimens of a certain species, one wonders what it all means, and I 

 dare say she holds herself quite unmoved as to what the " strict 

 systematists will say to such an attack on the law of priority," consider- 

 ing that, so far as I understand the matter, she has made none. 

 Treitschke's -description of bradyporina shows clearly that it is 

 materially different from the form so long known here as bradyporina, and 

 that is the important point of her note, as I understand it. Whether 

 Mr. Mansbridge's inelanocephala stands to science as the form of brady- 

 porina with a "black thorax," or not, is an item that matters nothing ; 

 what does matter, is that Treitschke's bradyporina was a suffused and 

 banded form like Mr. Mansbridge's, and not uniform grey like the 

 specimens we have so long mis-called bradyporina, and, as to " entomo- 

 logists agreeing with Mr. Tutt's acceptance of bradyporina for the greyish 

 form we most frequently get in England," I hope beyond all things, 

 that when Mr. Tutt has made a mistake, lepidopterists will not go on 

 perpetuating the mistake simply because he (!) made it. 



One cannot conclude without referring to the really melanic specimen 

 of this species described and figured by Mr. A. J. Willsdon {Entonu, 

 xxxix., p. 98); and reared in June, 1905, from an Essex larva. Such 

 an aberration as this, with its black forewings, and white cilia, its 

 black thorax, grey-black-ringed abdomen, and typical white hindwings, 

 really might be called ab. nigra, and no one question the advisability 

 thereof, but perhaps it has already been named. 



Collecting in Syria: Ain Zahalta in May=June, 1905. 



By P. P. GEAVES. 

 On arriving at Ain Sofar, I walked over to Ain Zahalta to make my 

 arrangements there, and next day went by mule to the village. I saw a 

 Papilio, which I now believe was P. alexanor, and, on the way, noted worn 

 Melitaea phoebe and a few M. trivia close to var. persea, and took Noviiadea 

 cyllarus var. aeruyinosa which was unluckily past its best. Near the 

 Sofar tunnel I noted L. sinapis and took a poor 5 of Plebeiiis nichoUi. 

 My experiences at Zahalta between May 31st and June 8th, were very 

 different from those of July in the previous year. Then the slopes 

 leading from the village down to the stream — Wadi Safa — had been 

 most productive as far as numbers were concerned, while my best 

 insects were taken near the top of the Zahalta end of the JebelBarouk 



