ORTHOPTERA
Gryllidæ
Gryllotalpa gryllotalpa (L.). Meir, Dirut, Egypt, 17-21/3/12. Two specimens. (Tests B. Uvarov.)
APPENDIX III
ROCK INSCRIPTIONS FROM THE LIBYAN DESERT
THE graffiti shown in the accompanying plates were collected in the Libyan Desert. The majority of them occurred on the Gubary road, between the oases of Kharga and Dakhla, or in the hattia through which this road runs, immediately before entering the oasis of Dakhla, in its south-east corner.
In many places these rock scribings were extraordinarily numerous. It is no exaggeration to say that at some of the recognised halting-places on the Gubary road, where it is the custom for caravans to rest during the midday heat, or at the end of the day’s journey, the rocks are so thickly covered with graffiti that it is almost impossible to walk without treading on them.
The collection does not pretend to be in any way a complete one, for the signs were mostly copied during a hurried journey in the hot weather of 1909; there are consequently a considerable number that have been overlooked.
Unfortunately most of them are cut on the flat horizontal stones by the roadside; so it was impossible to tell which was their right way up, as that would obviously depend upon the position with regard to them occupied at the time by the man who cut them. Some of them, however, were on more or less vertical surfaces, so that there could be no doubt as to their correct positions.