HAMMAM MESKUTINE 
167 
small sandhill or bush, it appears to be somewhat brilliantly 
coloured, having its neck and side of the head, as well as the lower 
edge of the folded wing, black, with a red-brown head and pale 
belly. But, on the other hand, when seen from above, as a hovering 
hawk would look at it, its reddish head and back are scarcely distin¬ 
guishable from the sand. 
The cryptic habits of the two Butterflies Euchloe belemia and 
E. charlonia have been already described [see p. 162]. 
Lastly, the Mantid Blepharopsis, referred to above, is one of the 
most striking examples of protective resemblance that I have come 
across. 
Hammam Meskutine, lat. 36° 25' N. circa 1000 ft. above sea-level. 
March 11th—16th, 1905. 
Our stay at Constantine was so short as to allow but a hurried 
walk through its fearsome gorge—where, by the way, Colias edusa 
was coursing up and down the slopes. It was almost heart-rending 
to see how far French “ improvements ” have marred the beauty of 
perhaps the most picturesquely situated city in Africa. From 
Constantine we went to the wonderful hot springs of Meskutine. 
The hotel people were charming, so was Mdlle. Antoinette, the tame 
Wild-Boar, though she was somewhat addicted to gnawing port¬ 
manteaux until driven away by a ridiculously small terrier. 
Here, by the way, Wild-Boars are very common, and work much 
destruction, so that one realized the meaning of the Psalmist’s words: 
“ The wild-boar out of the wood doth root it up.” Doubtless their 
abundance is owing to the Moslem religion forbidding the native 
inhabitants to eat their flesh. 
My collecting ground on the hillside above the sulphur springs 
differed in almost every respect from that at Biskra, accordingly nearly 
every insect taken was different, and of almost European aspect. 
Butterflies were fairly common, most of them— Ganoris rapae, Colias 
edusa, Pararge megaera, Coenonympha pamphilus, and even Vanessa 
polychloros, were homelike enough, but far more conspicuous than 
any of these was that grand insect Gonepteryx cleopatra, Linn., 
which was quite common. Then there was Euchloe belledice , 
and another butterfly quite new to me, Thestor ballus, Fabr., was 
fairly common. This last with its green underside was hard to see 
on the wing, still harder to see when settled, the black spots on the 
fore-wing being completely concealed in the attitude of rest. 
