160 
ALGERIA 
shooter of ducks, but, above all, a mighty walker, seemed to haunt 
the place, and I had the advantage of visiting it with his Bedawin 
assistant, who seemed to be a horn naturalist. Suleiman bin Arbi 
(if I have his name aright) is tall, distinguished-looking, of soft and 
gentle voice, speaking French, if not with fluency, at least with an 
elegance that I could not but envy. He seemed to know where 
every creature lived, and what it fed upon ; in many cases he knew 
its Latin name. To see him turn over a stone, pluck a grass-stem, 
thrust it into a hole in the ground and presently extract a large 
spider, was an education. He told me proudly that the Bedawin 
knew where to find water in the desert, adding with contempt in his 
voice that the Frenchman did not. 
There was a certain amount of vegetation about the stream 
leading from the sulphur spring, there was also vegetation of a sort 
in the dry gullies on the mountain-sides, gullies which had all the 
appearance of occasionally functioning as watercourses. Here I 
found, at the end of February or beginning of March, an Umbelliferous 
plant bearing small lumps of a gummy exudation; these proved to 
be the abode of larvae from which I bred on April 12th and May 3rd 
two specimens of Agonopteryx (Depressaria) thapsiella , Zell. 
Stone turning was not as profitable as might have been expected, 
perhaps because there were too many stones. I had got into the 
habit of catching beetles with my fingers, but was rebuked by 
Suleiman who said that it was not safe to dispense with forceps. 
Pondering over this remark I turned three stones in succession with 
this result:—(1) A most formidable looking Spider, alleged to he 
deadly; (2) A large Scorpion; (3) A small horned Viper, or Asp 
{Cerastes cornutus)\ After the last I took to my forceps and used 
them assiduously. The danger, such as it is, consists in the way 
that animals lurk in the loose sand or vegetable debris under the 
stones. Of less deadly seekers after shade I found Opatrum 
rusticum , Oliv.; Microtelus eariniceps, Reichs.; Aphodius granarius, 
Linn.; Nephodes sp.; Micipsa sp.; Helops sp.; none of the three 
last being represented in the National Collection. Other Coleoptera 
met with were Blaps prodigiosa , Erichs.; Pimelia simplex, Sol.; and 
P. latreillei, Sol.; this last again being unrepresented at South 
Kensington; Adesmia faremonti, one; A. acervata, one; A. hiska- 
rensis, commonly. Of Scarabaeus puncticollis , Latr., two were picked 
up off the sand, and one taken on the wing. On one occasion my 
daughter heard a slight rustling noise proceeding from a clump 
of Zaita {Limoniastrum guyonianum , Coss.), she watched carefully 
and soon saw the pretty beetle Graphipterus multiguttatus, Oliv., 
