FURTHER NOTES FROM PALESTINE. 139 
through our particular gulley with a fringe of bushes, and the trough 
of the valley acted as a sort of funnel for the wind which used to spring 
up every afternoon usually bringing a dust storm with it. The 
summits of these hills were weather-worn into all sorts of fantastic 
shapes and I longed for an artist’s gifts to sketch some of the curious 
outlines. The ground was pitted with the little burrows of ant lion larvee 
but there were not many insects. Some of the bushes by the stream 
were in flower, a lavender coloured blossom of a Spiraea type, and what 
insects there were came to these. A skipper butterfly used to frequent 
them and an occasional P. cardut would put in an appearance but the 
most constant visitors were large humble-bees with black wings and 
bodies and a conspicuous yellow thorax ; Xylocopa aestrans and one or 
two solitary bees and wasps also occurred. Mosquito nets were “ de 
rigueur,” but I did not see any mosquitoes, though we had several cases 
of malaria or what was diagnosed as such by the M.O. during our stay. 
The Battery remained in the Jordan Valley for some six weeks and 
then we were relieved in our turn and went back to the coastal sector in 
time to take part in General Allenby’s great advance in September. We 
subsequently followed up the victorious cavalry, treking across the- 
plain of Esdraelon, which consisted mainly of a sea of very prickly 
thistles, distinctly unpleasant as bivouac sites, and reached Haifa on 
the Ist October. Here we made another three weeks stay and a few 
Lepidoptera were observed, Macroylossa stellatarum, an ‘oak eggar” 
moth, and ‘“vapourer” moths both in the larval and imaginal states. 
Silver-fish insects were noted in the building in which the Battery 
office was situated. The swampy nature of the hinterland of Haifa 
was probably responsible for a good many cases of malaria that 
occurred during our stay. 
On the 22nd October we received orders to move up to Beirut, and 
a nine days march along the coast passing Acre of crusading and 
Napoleonic fame, and Tyre and Saida (Sidon) taking the memory 
back to the earlier days of the Phoenicians and Biblical history. The 
gradual change in the character of the vegetation, the buildings and 
the dress of the inhabitants as we proceeded on our route was very 
interesting. Between Tyre and Sidon we passed by a deserted cliff- 
village with a number of caves and rock dwellings, reached by roughly 
hewn flights of steps cut out of the rock. A fact that specially struck 
me was the startling contrast between the barren, rocky slopes of the 
hills on one side of the road and the luxuriant growth of vegetation 
and fruit trees in the cultivated areas on the seaward side; these areas 
only oecurred in the vicinity of the towns and I suppose were the 
result of generations of culture, as nothing looked more unpromising 
than the slopes of these hills. The only insects noted were Colias 
edusa and Pyrameis cardui. These two species seem to be the 
commonest kinds oecurring in Palestine, they were noticed everywhere 
and seen more or less all the year round. We arrived at Beirut on 
the 31st October and took part in the formal march of the 54th 
Division through that town at the hour at which the Armistice with 
Turkey was signed. 
Almost as soon as we had reached Beirut the rainy season set in, 
and this coinciding with an outburst of “Spanish flu’’ had disastrous 
consequences on the health of the troops, who were tired out with the 
strenuous work of the pursuit of the remnants of the Turkish Armies. 
