CHAPTER IV 
ALGERIA. FEBRUARY 6TH—APRIL 3RD, 1905 
Alger 
February 6th—14th. 
The “ General Chanzy” was not a comfortable steamer: her Clyde 
builders would appear to have given her lines that facilitated rolling 
on the very slightest provocation, and her French owners by no means 
exemplified the whilom adage, “ they manage these things better in 
France.” 1 However, in spite of discomfort we duly reached the 
old pirate stronghold, which, up to the time of its bombardment by 
English and Dutch ships under Lord Exmouth in 1816, was wont to 
defy Europe. Algiers still retains much of its former picturesqueness 
and Oriental character, though these are fast disappearing before 
French “ improvements ” ; indeed Mustapha, the European residential 
quarter, might well be on the Riviera. 
Butterflies were by no means common, it was evidently too early. 
On the slopes at the back of the hotel, at about 300 ft. above the sea, 
several Whites were seen, also a Gonejoteryx and a Colias , but the 
only butterfly netted was a male Ganoris rajoae. Flying against a 
sandy cliff close by was Macroglossa stellatarum, which I found after¬ 
wards to be one of the commonest Algerine moths. The butterfly 
that was commonest around Mustapha was the fulvous form of 
Pararge aegeria , Linn. (■ meone , Cram.). This was especially numerous 
near Koubba, and taking it at the time to be a species new to me 
especially noted its habits. It flies slowly, and, as a rule, for a short 
distance, settling on the ground, or on stones, with its wings from 
three-fourths to four-fifths expanded, and turns round so that its back 
is to the sun. I never saw one of these butterflies settled more than 
45° out of this adjustment. Two specimens had had their wings 
snipped, perhaps by a would-be captor. It was a source of some 
1 Shortly after this was written—early in 1910—the “ General Chanzy ” was 
wrecked on Minorca, with the loss of all on board. 
