WADI HALFA—KHARTUM 
403 
quantity of sand, blown about by the winds, finds a resting place 
here and there, at the foot of a cliff or against the walls of a building. 
January 31st. Wadi Haifa (lat. 21° 55' FT.) is really the first 
town in the Sudan, but from a naturalist’s point of view might be 
better looked upon as the last town in Egypt. In the short time at 
my disposal I got next to nothing. Andrena bipartita, Brulle, was 
abundant in the cultivated land to the north of the town, and in the 
same district I caught a couple of Colletes braccatus, Perez, and one 
Megachile albocincta , for although Leaf-cutters were common enough 
they are sometimes exceedingly hard to catch, and here I was 
successful once only. 
THE ANGLO-EGYPTIAN SUDAN. 
February 1st—22nd, 1909. 
On looking out of the train in the morning after the stifling 
night on the Nubian desert-—somewhere between Berber and the 
River Atbara—a change in the appearance of the country is observed. 
A thin thorn-scrub, varied by occasional groups of Dum Palms, 
Hyphaene thebaica , Del., throws a slight veil over the nakedness of the 
desert. Occasionally a few Gazelles create a flutter of excitement 
among the passengers, and when the sun gets up the mirage slowly 
develops, as if the horizon were first softened and then evaporated 
by the heat. From time to time stray butterflies are seen; these 
I took to be Catopsilia florella , Fabr., though it is just possible that 
among them may have been Teracolus protomedia , Klug. During 
a short halt at Wad Ben Naga Station (lat. 16° 32' N.) I tried to 
solve this problem, but the sense of anxious hurry lest the train 
should start, the swift flight of the butterflies, the strong wind, the 
blinding glare, and the great heat combined to frustrate my efforts; 
and I only succeeded in netting a male of Tarucus theophrastus , Fabr., 
a Blue that I met with from Luxor to my southernmost point at 
Gebel Ein—-a range of nearly 16° of latitude. 
Khartum (lat. 15° 35 N.; 1200 ft. above sea-level). 
Khartum is unlike any place that I have seen. Situated on the 
southern bank of the Blue Nile, just above its junction with the 
White Nile, it is a new city; it is, moreover, a European city, for 
the native population lives almost exclusively in mud villages on the 
outskirts. The palace in which Gordon lived and died is its oldest 
