54 
INDIA 
barely saved by the prompt arrival of the Guides from Mardan, who 
had started within the hour of getting the news and marched 
throughout the night. Even now the Pass is closed every night by 
chevaux de f rise, and the garrison is always prepared for an attack. 
Moreover, when scrambling over the hillsides, in addition to the 
usual Indian thorns in all their varieties, wire entanglements have 
to be negotiated. 
When we drove with our host through the peaceful looking Swat 
valley to the outlying fort at Chakdurra we had as an escort a 
sowar (trooper) of the Swat Levies, armed with both lance and sabre, 
and when I went collecting it was deemed prudent that I should be 
accompanied by a gigantic chaprassi, a Pathan of the tribe of the 
Jusufsai, or Sons of Joseph—for they claim to be one of the lost 
Tribes. My cicerone had fought against us in 1895, since which 
time he had served in our native army, and was now a Com¬ 
missionaire or Official Messenger. I fear it tried his loyalty sorely 
to have to wait upon a mad catcher of flies. 
The rocky hills seemed too dry and burnt up to harbour many 
Butterflies, but on the parched slopes of the fortified crag, nicknamed 
Gibraltar, the pretty little Melitaea trivia , Schiffi, was almost 
abundant; on a glaucous shrub at the foot of the same hill were 
numbers of the glaucous green and yellow Grasshopper, Poecilocerus 
pictus , which though conspicuous enough on the wing was decidedly 
cryptic when at rest. Other Orthoptera were Quiroguesia blanchard- 
iana , Sauss., and Tryxalis nasuta. I took also three Wasps, two 
Vespa velutina , Lepel. (var. “ des Indes” Sauss.) ?, and a Polistes 
hebraeus , Eabr., $. 
In addition to the above a long and hot walk only yielded one 
Ganoris canidia, £; two Terias hecabe , a female of the variety without 
the “ dog’s head,” and a large but otherwise normal female ; two Blues, 
a Zizera karsandra, and a Z. maha , var. diluta , Feld.; one Precis 
orithyia; a dingy Skipper, Gegenes nostro damns, Fabr., and a Micro, 
which Lord Walsingham says is Eretmocera impactella, Walk., the 
variety with smaller spots; it belongs to the Hyponomeutidae. Some 
puddles of water at the baggage-mules’ drinking-place proved very 
attractive, yielding a female Argynnis hyperbius, Johanss. ( niphe , 
Linn.), a male Tarucus theophrastus, and the conspicuous Hipparchia 
parisatis. 
The next day (Oct. 29th) I lighted upon an oasis in the desert in 
the shape of the staff-sergeant’s garden, where irrigation had produced 
a brilliant mass of flowers, some vegetables, and a small field of 
Lucerne. Here butterflies abounded: Terias hecabe, without the 
