32 PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 



and the storm- bowed stunted ash- trees. The face of the hill towards 

 the upper lake lay black and desolate, the heather having been fired. 

 In the lake itself, however, the botanists of the party found attraction 

 enough to plunge, beyond their elbows, among the beds of Isoetes lacus- 

 tris in bloom. The entomologists were less fortunate. The only thing 

 worth recording by them is the capture of a second specimen of Pelina 

 (Bnescens, nearly in the exact same spot where the first was taken the pre- 

 ceding spring, viz., beside a little stream which brawls, half-hidden among 

 huge boulders of granite and deep beds of moss, as it descends from the 

 lower lake to swell the waters of Glencree river. 



Later in July, I was staying a few days at Newrath Bridge, and my 

 walks were mostly, from that up the wooded valley of the Vartrey 

 river, to the romantic gorge called the "Devil's Glen." It was here 

 that the examples of the two genera referred to occurred. These were 

 Zygonema sciarina and Atherix ibis. Of the latter I found several 

 specimens, but was not so fortunate as to witness the singular assem- 

 blages of this species which a writer in the " Entomological Magazine" 

 has described. The females resort to trees overhanging the water, and 

 there deposit their eggs, in a cluster, on the under-side of a leaf, so 

 that the larvae, when hatched, may fall into the water ; after laying, 

 the parent fly dies, clinging to the leaf. Others associate themselves 

 there for the same purpose, till the leaves become loaded each with 

 a pendant pyramid of the dead flies, conspicuous by their prettily 

 banded wings. A German writer declares that he saw on one occasion 

 a beech- tree, nearly every leaf of which bore such a charnel heap. I 

 had an opportunity of observing the Cyphon deflexicollis, which abounded 

 in the Vartrey, in all stages of its growth. This species is almost as truly 

 a water-beetle as the Elmides, which often leave the water to climb up 

 the stems of plants, and sun themselves, or use their wings to seek new 

 quarters. The Cyphones were busy creeping among the wet gravel, or 

 at the bottom of little pools, to lay their eggs there ; while, on lifting up 

 stones, to procure the larvae and pupae from the under-side, the newly 

 disclosed beetles also came up abundantly to the surface, each enveloped 

 in its own silvery air-bubble. Their coat of down is quite impervious 

 to moisture, and, floating securely on the surface, they spread out their 

 long wings, and rise with ease from the water. Among the small Diptera 

 which swarmed about the river-bank, I found what may probably prove 

 a third British species of Corynoneura. In the window of my apart- 

 ment I observed daily some fresh specimens of the Tanypus pusillus and 

 a few of Pericoma bullata. In company with Mr. E. P. Wright, I vi- 

 sited the lagoon, fringed with bulrushes — the Broad Lough — which lies 

 between the Murrough of Wicklow and the main land. Unfortunately, 

 we had neither of us an insect-net, and so the rare Rhamphina longi- 

 rostris was seen only. Pcederus fuseipes was common on the mud, and 

 we succeeded in finding the larva also. 



During the exceedingly hot weather which ushered in the month of 

 August, I was for three days at the southern extremity of the county 

 of "Wicklow. The burning sun seemed to have made the human popu- 



