daring a May in Cumberland. 201 



25th. A walk on the sea brows at Fluwick. These sea 

 brows, as they are called, are immense perpendicular crags of 

 red freestone overhanging the shore, and in many parts covered 

 with ling, whins, and innumerable species of wild plants ; 

 affording a fine field for the botanist, as well as for his next- 

 door neighbour the collector of insects ; and, for number and 

 variety of both plants and insects, perhaps it is the best spot 

 in the county, with which I am acquainted at least. Here 

 also may the admirer of the beauties of nature, on the large 

 scale, be gratified by the magnificence of the scenery ; having 

 before him a noble expanse of sea, the Isle of Man, and the 

 blue hills of Scotland, on the one hand ; and, on the other, an 

 extensive view of the mountainous district of the south-west 

 of Cumberland. That beautiful insect, Cicindela campestris, 

 which some of your correspondents have called the tiger of 

 insects, was very numerous ; I captured half a dozen pairs, 

 male and female in nearly equal numbers. They were not all 

 of the same colour, some being of a bright golden green, and 

 some of a brownish green ; the golden spots being in some 

 bright, in others brown and dull : many pairs were in coitu. 

 I am altogether at a loss to assign names to several of the 

 Coleoptera which I took. I observed, for the first time, 

 several specimens of common copper (Lycae N n« Phlse as), 

 which, in the Butterfly Collector's Vade Mecum, is stated to ap- 

 pear in April : they were lively, and shy of approach. Not a 

 single blue was to be seen ; though Samouelle, I see, assigns 

 their appearance two months earlier than this. In these cold 

 and high northern latitudes, as the " loons o' the south " deem 

 us Cumbrians to be placed, confounding us with our next 

 neighbours, the Scots, it is in a mild and genial spring only 

 that the blues show themselves early in May; and, as I have 

 already stated, the spring of this year (1832) has been sin- 

 gularly unfavourable. Although I picked up several cocoons, 

 and caterpillars of the six-spot burnet moth (2ygae N na fili- 

 pendulae S.) 9 I did not meet with an imago. 



27th. A caterpillar of Odenesis potatoria (drinker moth), 

 which feeds on grass, changed into the chrysalis state since 

 yesterday. 



28th. Caught a brimstone moth (Geometra cratsegaria) ; 

 the first I captured, though I fancied I saw several some days 

 before. As I was procuring minnows for a bait, in a small 

 rivulet, I observed an unusual number of the loach (Cobitis 

 barbatula), bearded loach Fleming : they were very small, and 

 in greater numbers than those before noticed. 



29th. The caterpillars of the tiger moth (A'rctia Ck]a S.), 

 are uncommonly numerous : I have a great number ; a friend 



