THE NILE 
429 
Heteromeron crawled in the Temple of Seti, quite unconscious of the 
superiority of the earlier carvings to the later which so sadly deface 
them. At night Sesamia cretica and Plusia circumflexa came to the 
steamer’s lights, accompanied by Endotricha consobrinalis. 
March 12th.™At Asyut I did not see a single butterfly, and 
sweeping produced nothing more exciting than Coccinella 11-punctata , 
Megachile flavines , and Apis mellifica ; while Vespa orientalis occurred 
in the little public garden. 
Abu Eedah (lat. 27° 30' N.). The steamer’s lights brought 
together a number of Cirphis loreyi and a Lamellicorn beetle, a 
species of Pentodon, represented at South Kensington, but not named. 
March 13th.—At Tel-al-Amarna (lat. 27° 37' N.) the insects met 
with— T'amicus telicanus , Xylocopa aestuans , and Chalicodoma sicula— 
fell far short of the wall paintings in interest. It may, however, be 
noted that this was my northernmost locality for the Blue, at least 
in Africa, for in 1903 I took it at Lahore (lat. 31° 35' N.). 
Near Matai (lat. 28° 26' N.) the steamer ran aground at a very 
narrow place where the difficulty of navigation was considerable and 
the stream strong. The current striking the stern of the vessel on 
the port side swung it right round, and, there not being room enough, 
literally brushed off the rudder against the bank. The turning move¬ 
ment had liberated the bows and the Baiz (pilot) managed to anchor 
in a convenient bay a little lower down where there was less current. 
To these river steamers the loss of a rudder is such an ordinary 
occurrence that they carry a spare one, and it did not take the 
engineers many hours to clear away the wreckage and ship another. 
A few insects came to the lights of the disabled ship: many 
Agrotis ypsilon, several Euxoa spinifera and Cirphis loreyi , a few 
Nomophila noctuella. A couple of Scarabaeus sacer turned up, but I 
was more surprised to see Schistocerca peregrina. While in pursuit 
of moths I boxed a specimen of the blood-sucking fly, Hippobosca 
francilloni, Leach, off the face of a fellow-passenger. 
Arabic is a difficult language: I am told that it is related to Hebrew, 
but it has little or nothing in common with Aryan tongues. A 
puzzled student once waggishly said that in Arabic every noun¬ 
substantive had three meanings:— 
1. Its own proper primary signification. 
2. A secondary signification the exact opposite of the first. 
3. Some sort of camel. 
A clergyman coming down the Nile told me that he was greatly 
