28 ANNALS OF SCOTTISH NATURAL HISTORY 



ally bright (not being in the nuptial dress) at this season, but 

 with the additional ornament of a broad white gorget 

 separating the neck from the breast, with a very pale buffish 

 white pear-shaped spot, three-eighths of an inch in length, 

 immediately behind each eye, strongly contrasting with the 

 broad dark patch of glossy green on which it rests. Of the 

 hundreds of Teal that I have handled, both in decoys and 

 elsewhere, I have never come across a similar marked 

 specimen. This, together with specimens of all the fore- 

 mentioned Palmipedes, will shortly be placed in the New 

 Perthshire Museum. 



ON SOME COLEOPTERA FROM THE SUMMIT 

 OF BEN NEVIS, COLLECTED BY MR. W. S. 

 BRUCE. 



By the Rev. ALFRED THORNLEY, M.A., F. Ent. Soc., F.L.S. 



[INTRODUCTORY NOTES BY MR. BRUCE. In May 1895 I was asked 

 to take charge of the Observatory on the summit of Ben Nevis ; and, 

 having accepted the offer, I made the ascent on the loth of that 

 month. Before starting, my friend Mr. W. Eagle Clarke, of the 

 Edinburgh Museum of Science and Art, advised me to look out for 

 insects on the summit. I was not disappointed, I was even amazed 

 at the host of insect life to be met with on the summit. Here is an 

 extract from my log which may be illustrative : 



" 6th June 1895. Another splendid day for insects. . . . The 

 difficulty yesterday and to-day, insect hunting, was to drag oneself 

 away from one spot, so numerous were the insects. ... I had not 

 time to collect any number of the commoner insects." 



Contour. Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in the British Isles, 

 along with the northern Cam Dearg, forms an irregular semilunar- 

 shaped mass, the concavity of which faces the north-east and the con- 

 vexity of which faces the south-west. The lower north-western half 

 of this mass is the Cam Dearg, and the loftier south-eastern half Ben 

 Nevis. Ben Nevis itself rises as a rather steep slope from Glen 

 Nevis from the south, and drops perpendicularly as a precipice 1500 

 to 2000 feet in height towards the north. To the west it continues 

 as the north-westerly lying Cam Dearg ; to the east it runs into a 

 north-easterly ridge which unites it to the Cam Mor Dearg. 



I will here define what is meant by the term summit when used 

 in this paper. It is all that part of the hill which is above 4350 



