80 THE DOWNFALL OF THE DERVISHES for butterflies, but the Arabs could never be brought to realise that I wanted variety and quality as well as quantity. On one occasion a struggling mass of fifteen or twenty common white butterflies in a matchbox—all exactly the same—was triumphantly brought me by a small boy. I liberated the unhappy prisoners, and rewarded the boy with one penny and a severe lecture.’

As to the other insects in one’s collection, many of these were so appallingly ugly and malignant in appearance that one had to pull oneself together to attempt their capture. A soda-water bottle had been filled with whisky amid the protests of Cross, who thought this a waste of good liquor, and when some grisly insect with a striped body, projecting eyes, and aggressive antennz appeared inside the tent, something like this conversation used to take place :— E. N. B.—‘“Do you mind catching that harmless lepidopt, Cross, while I hold the bottle ?”

H. C.—‘ I think, somehow, that you're better 1A brief list of the entomological specimens brought back from the campaign is given on p. 253.