428 
EGYPT 
that the lady was getting really interested, when she suddenly broke 
out with, “ Yes, I suppose they are all quotations from the Koran.” 
Such entomological efforts as I did make at Luxor were but 
poorly requited, and I can recall few districts less productive than the 
Theban plain. The hotel garden harboured a very few Tarucus theo - 
phrastus, and they were in bad condition. From time to time a 
White gave me a desperate chase, and after many efforts I secured 
one—a female Ganoris rapae, Linn. To the south of the town I 
picked up odd examples of Gatochrysops lysimon and Tarucus telicanus , 
and saw Pyrameis cardui. 
The Aculeates met with were Xylocopa aestuans ; Colletes braccatus, 
a Bee that was abundant at mignonette flowers ; Megachile Jlavipes ; 
the Wasps, Sceliphron spirifex, Eumenes tinctor, and Vespa orientalis 
at flowers of carrot; with these was a Myzine (?) aegyptiaca, which I 
had also taken at Khartum. 
The large garden of the hotel also yielded the big red Locust, 
Schistocerca peregrina, Coccinella 11-punctata , Ocnera hispida and the 
Syrphid fly, Eristalis taeniops. 
But if the days were unproductive it must be admitted that 
the nights were less so, and the moths about the electric lights kept 
me busy on the terrace of the hotel. Most of the Noctuids were by 
this time old friends: Agrotis ypsilon, A. segetum , Euxoa spinifera , 
Girphis loreyi, Caradrina exigua (in some numbers), Sesamia cretica 
and Spodoptera mauritia ; the same is true of Craspedia consentanea , 
Tephrina disputaria , Deilephila livornica, Trichiura obsoleta, Nomo- 
phila noctuella, and Eromene ocellea. There were, however, a few 
newcomers, of which the most conspicuous, or at least the most 
numerously represented, was Plusia circumflexa, Linn, (a near ally of 
our P. gamma, which it closely resembles), an insect which ranges 
over Southern Europe and a great part of Africa. The Catocaline, 
Pseudophia haifae, Habditch, is an insect that has been but recently 
described from Alexandria, and the National Collection possesses but 
one specimen; unfortunately only one visited my hotel. A much 
more conspicuous thing was the handsome Taragama acaciae, Klug; 
I have little doubt that the stripped branches and unsightly webs which 
I saw on the Acacias at Aswan and elsewhere were the work of the 
larva of this Lasiocampid. 
Other insects found about the lights were the Carabid, Cklaenius 
brahminus , Laf., the once revered Scarabaeus sacer, and a Mole-cricket, 
Gryllotalpa africana, Pallas. 
March 11th.—At Baliana (lat. 26° 15' N.), on the Abydos road, a 
number of Ganoris rapae were seen in and about the fields; an obscure 
