262 



SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



A NATURALIST IN SOUTH-EASTERN EUROPE. 



By Malcolm Burr, F.E.S., F.Z.S. 

 {Concluded fiom page 243.) 



T*HE few days spent in Dalmatia were not 

 successful from an entomological point of 

 view. The early morning train from Mostar 

 brought me to Metkovic about seven, where I was 

 able to spend a whole day, but nothing rewarded 

 my researches. On August 7th, I arrived at 

 Gravosa, after a nine hours' trip among the low, 

 stony, barren islands which fringe the Dalmatian 

 littoral. From Gravosa I walked to the source of 

 the Ombla, in the hopes of taking the cave- 

 grasshoppers which are said to occur in holes in 

 the cliffs in that neighbourhood. I found nothing 

 but Xiphidium fuscum Fab., Oedipoda miniata Pall., 

 O. caerulescens L. and Platyphyma giornae Rossi. 

 The hills round Ragusa were no more productive. 

 The sea was most tempting for bathing, but sharks 

 are too numerous to be pleasant, for even as far 

 north as Trieste these creatures are said to make 

 a morning dip a little risky. On August 8th I 

 walked among the vineyards near the little village 

 of Ragusa Vecchia, but took nothing except the 

 common species mentioned above ; a single 

 Decticid was seen, but too active to be caught. 

 Although Southern Dalmatia is said to be rich 

 in rare species, collecting is difficult, as every 

 possible piece of ground is occupied by vineyards, 

 and all the country that I visited was cultivated. 

 The curious cave-grasshoppers, belonging to the 

 family Stenopelmatidae, are known to occur, as 

 well as the great carnivorous Sagidae, but I did 

 not find any of them. I also failed to discover 

 several species of Decticidae which have been 

 taken round Ragusa, and after the riches of Herze- 

 govina all insect life seemed to be very scarce. 



To catch the steamer from Castelnuovo to 

 Cattaro, timed to leave early the following morning, 

 I was obliged to take an open rowing boat, that 

 being the only means of travelling from Ragusa 

 Vecchia, and as the distance by coast is thirty 

 miles, we were rowing all night. On the morning 

 of August gth, I found myself at Cattaro, a small 

 old-fashioned place on the coast, at the foot of 

 great rocky mountains, at the end of a deep arm 

 of the sea, the Bocche di Cattaro, which recalls a 

 Norwegian fjord, or the Lake of Lucerne, rather 

 than a Dalmatian inlet. The hills round Cattaro 

 appeared to be richer than the barren districts I 

 had visited in the last few days. 



Being eager to push on into Montenegro without 

 delay, I started at once to climb the mountain at 

 the back of the town, to walk to Cetinje. It was a 

 long and tiring walk, varied with no collecting, for 

 the only species I observed was the ubiquitous 



Oedipoda miniata Pall. Once the top of the 

 mountain was reached, walking was less difficult. 

 The path was merely a mule track, narrow and 

 stony ; the country round was barren, rocky and 

 undulating. The only vegetation appeared to be a 

 few stunted shrubs and tufts of grass, forcing their 

 way up between the stones. From these bushes I 

 disturbed numberless lizards, and an occasional 

 snake, but not capturing any, I was unable to 

 ascertain their names. 



I passed the Lovtjen, a historic mountain where 

 years ago the Montenegrins fled for refuge from 

 the Turks. On the sides of this mountain is the 

 only wood in that part of the country where, pro- 

 bably, life is more abundant than in the open 

 land round. There is a curious popular tradi- 

 tion about the origin of this region. It is thought 

 that when the Creator had almost finished the 

 earth, he was passing over this district, carrying 

 all the useless and superfluous stones and rocks 

 in a bag, which burst, when the contents fell 

 and littered the country which is now Montenegro. 

 If that was so, the natives should be grateful for 

 the accident, for these rocks have helped to protect 

 the hardy mountaineers for years against their 

 hereditary enemies, the Turks. 



The landscape, seen from a hill, is very curious. 

 At more or less regular intervals there is a round, 

 deep depression, almost certainly the bed of an 

 ancient lake. These are separated by sharp ridges, 

 called " vrh." The general appearance may be 

 compared to a surface of mud pitted with rain- 

 drops on an enormous scale. In these hollows 

 are built the towns of Njegush and Cetinje, and 

 Rjeka and other villages, where the natives grow 

 potatoes, maize, cabbages, and tobacco. The higher 

 country is perfectly barren. Among the rocks near 

 Cetinje, on August nth, I took Stenobothrus mfipes 

 Zett.,S. bico lor Chzvp., S.petraeus Bris., S.pulvinatus 

 Fisch. de W., Rhacocleis discrepans Fieb., Oecanthus 

 pellucens Scop., Oedipoda miniata Pall, and S. 

 parallelus Zett, and the common and widely dis- 

 tributed Hymenopteron, Flalictus calceatus Scop. 

 In the main street in Cetinje itself I observed 

 a large dragonfly, which I captured with my 

 sweep-net, to the astonishment of the onlookers. 

 Mr. McLachlan has determined it to be Hemianax 

 ephippiger, an African and Asiatic species, which 

 he suggests is almost certainly a straggler, being 

 unlikely to be indigenous in such a locality. 



On August 12th I walked to Rjeka, a tiny hamlet 

 of seventy houses, where I took Acrotylus patruclis 

 Sturm, and Tylopsis liliifolia var. margineguttata, 



