b THE ENTOMOLOGIST S RECORD. 



Tomares (Thestor) ballus var. mareoticus, Azanus ubaldus, and aberra- 

 tions of Virachola livia and Chilades trochilus have been figured in the 

 Entomologist, vol. li., p. 97, May. 1918. Some other interesting records 

 remain to be described. 



On June 10th, 1917, I took a J Polyommatus icarus, in bad con- 

 dition, on a patch of meadow in the grounds of the Gezira Sporting 

 Club, Cairo. I had never seen P. icarus before in Egypt, and never 

 heard of its capture there. True, several officers who had been 

 quartered at Marsa Matruh, about 120 miles W. of Alexandria, have 

 told me that " Common Blues " were to be seen there in early sum- 

 mer, but I have not found previous information from non-collectors to 

 be of any value, and suspect that these " Blues" may have been L. 

 boeticus. In any case the strip of steppe prolonged W. of Alexandria 

 along the coast to Cyrenaica is scarcely to be reckoned as Egyptian 

 from the faunistic point of view, though it is Egyptian politically. 

 Seitz is responsible for the statement that P. icarus does not occur in 

 Cyrenaica. Perhaps Dr. Verity can tell us what does occur in that 

 faunistically and geographically little explored country. 



The specimen, a J" , of P. icarus taken by me at Gezira had a 

 decidedly " southern " facies. It may have been imported with forage 

 from Italy or Salonika, or even S. Palestine, railway commuuication 

 with which was open in June, 1917, and the absence of any previous 

 records makes me inclined to think that my specimen was an acci- 

 dental visitor — an "advena." Chilades trochilus was not till May, 1917, 

 a species which I had ever taken in abundance in Egypt, though it 

 occurred rather locally in many places near Cairo, e.g., Maadi, near 

 Helwan (Heluan), Marg, etc. But in late May and throughout June, 

 1917, I found it in large numbers on the P. icarus meadow at Gezira, 

 ovipositing on the rose-purple flowers of a species of Ticia, from which 

 I bred one specimen. I took a series of some 60 specimens here. They 

 were decidedly large and well-marked. It was with regret that I found 

 in May, 1918, that the meadow had been dug up and would be con- 

 verted into a lawn tennis court. 



Vicia is not the only food-plant of C. trochilus. In May, 1917, I 

 found it ovipositing on Alhagi manniferum or A. mauroruin, in the 

 Wadi Rished, near Helwan, and it probably feeds on other Leguminosae. 

 The pabulum of L. boeticus and T. telicanus var. egyptiaca is extremely 

 varied in Egypt. I bred a number of the latter from a hedge of 

 Seabania aegyptiaca, a tall Papilionaceous shrub with yellow flowers, in 

 tbe autumn of 1916. With these I also bred several L. boeticus, but 

 the latter butterfly oviposited at least as much on some adjacent shrubs 

 of Cajulus indicus, which the J of T. telicanus var. egyptiaca did not 

 seem to favour to the same extent, though I saw one or two instances 

 of oviposition by the latter species on the buds of Cajulus. Both 

 insects oviposit on Alhagi and on the red-flowered Vicia mentioned 

 above. I have also seen L. boeticus oviposit on the following Legu- 

 miuosae- always, so far, on the buds of flowers — " Lablab " [I'oliclios 

 lablab), Sweet-pea, Broad Bean, Pea [Pisum sativum), Kidney Bean, 

 "Labia" Bean, and on an ornamental Leguminous shrub with large 

 yellow flowers and prominent pistil growing in the Gezira Gardens. I 

 further have seen L. boeticus oviposit on flowers of Astragalus forskalei, 

 the desert food-plant of Plebeius loewii in Egypt, and I suspect that the 

 young flowers of Albizzia lebbek furnish T. telicanus with food-plant 

 during the early summer. 



