atomologists 
JOURNAL OF VARIATION. 
Vou. XI. No. 2. Frpruary 1dtH, 1900. 
Bulgarian Butterflies. 
By MARY DE LA B. NICHOLL, F.E.S. 
Bulgaria is a very interesting district to the collector, as it has 
scarcely been explored at all by western entomologists, and the higher 
mountains are generally difficult of access. The people are quiet and 
civil, brigandage being practically extinct ; but I could not have travelled 
in the remoter regions of the Rhodope alone; and the success of the 
expedition is entirely due to Mr. H. J. Elwes, to whose experience of 
camping out in wild places, and amongst rough people, I owe the 
pleasantest and the most original tour that I have ever accomplished. 
As, however, Mr. Elwes could not leave England before the middle of 
June I collected alone in the more accessible parts of the country for 
nearly a month before he joined me. I had letters of introduction to 
Mr. Elliot, our Minister in Bulgaria, to Mr. Freeman, our Vice-Consul 
at Sofia, and Dr. Leverkiihn, the very capable head of the museum 
at Sofia. This is a most interesting and well arranged institution, 
and contains good local collections of the birds and fishes of Bulgaria. 
It deserves the attention of any naturalist visiting Sofia, though the 
Rhopalocera are scarcely represented there (excepting such as are 
destructive to trees or plants). Prince Ferdinand has, I believe, a fine 
collection of butterflies, but that remains at Vienna. From these 
three gentlemen I received much kindness and useful information, and 
from the Bulgarian Government I had an “open order,” which we 
several times found useful in difficulties. 
May 21st I made an excursion with a local entomologist to a 
village in the valley of the Ister, on the south-eastern slopes of the 
Vitoch. This is a great mountain, over 6000 feet high, rising rather 
abruptly due south of Sofia—a long flat-topped mass of granite, with 
slopes well clothed with wood, looking as if it ought to be good collect- 
ing ground, which, however, is not the case, the list of local butterflies 
being rather a scanty one. We hunted some rough dry slopes behind 
the village, too much cultivated and too hardly grazed to be very pro- 
ductive, and then came down into good wet fields. I give the principal 
items of our bag, as it was the only occasion on which I collected 
near Sofia :—Parnassius mnemosyne, Pieris napi, Colias edusa, Thecla 
rubt, Chrysophanus dorilis, C. thersamon, C. phlaeas, Lycaena argiades, 
L. icarus, L. bellargus, L. aegon, L. semiargus, L. astrarche, Pyrameis 
cardui, Syrichthus malvae, S. alveus, and several of the commoner 
Meliteeas, &c.; all these tolerably plentiful. 
