62 The Field Naturalist 's Quarterly Feb. 



stream) vie with each other in the greenness of their wooded 

 banks, covered with an undergrowth of luxuriant ferns. In 

 one special narrow valley, riddled with old shafts of lead 

 mines, the oak and beech ferns grew in undisturbed magnif- 

 icence, such as one seldom sees at the best of times. Above 

 the green valleys the high moorlands glow with the purple 

 of heather and the gold of gorse. 



One of the most charming of the many directions one 

 may take is the walk or drive to Llyn Aled, and the best of 

 it is that you may go one way and return by quite a different 

 route. This, I imagine, is always a welcome arrangement 

 in any country ramble, if it can be done. The route by 

 lanes first and then across the free wind-swept moors, 

 tenanted by whirring grouse and lean mountain-fed sheep, 

 is a grand one. The map shows that you pass by several 

 tumuli, and then the road sweeps a great curve and takes 

 one past a small lake from which the Denbigh water-supply 

 is drawn ; and then with a large shooting-box, Brynntrillyn, 

 on the right, you have a grand view of the Snowdonian 

 mountains, wreathed, it may be, with clouds and mist, whose 

 ever-moving masses disclose now and again the depths of 

 grey and brown of many rifts in the hillsides. 



Llyn Aled is only a small lake about half a mile long and 

 nearly half that distance across at its widest part, and the 

 banks perfectly treeless, except for a few larches near the 

 fishing-house at the northern end. Good fishing was obtain- 

 able up to recent years, when, if I am correctly informed, 

 pike were introduced into the lake, and much to the damage 

 of other fishes ! Paddling about the shores, plentifully 

 sprinkled with Littorella lacustris, and with indications of 

 Lobelia dortmanna, in the shallow water, I was most de- 

 lighted, on my memorable visit, to discover a few plants 

 of Elatine hydropiper, the minute Water-pepper. This tiny 

 plant, according to latest advices (vide London Catalogue), 

 only appears in three districts or localities in the British 

 Isles. It, with Elatine hexandra, belongs to the natural 

 order Elatinaceae, a small order with relationships to Caryo- 

 phyllaceae and Hypericaceae. They are both annuals, grow- 

 ing under water, having opposite spathulate or ovate leaves, 

 and minute greenish flowers. The two or three specimens 



