1899.] 51 



heather clad sides of the last named, and as there was no path of any 

 description, it was rather exhausting work reaching the summit — 3670 

 feet above sea-level — but a magnificent panorama of the Grampians 

 rewarded my efforts. There were a number of tempting lochs near 

 the summits of neighbouring mountains, but, unfortunately, all too far 

 off and in the wrong direction. It is one thing to mark a place as five 

 miles distant as the crow flies, and quite another, in the Grampians, to 

 get there. I descended by a beautiful but rugged strath, which ends 

 rather abruptly in a waterfall of perhaps sixty feet in height, and 

 sheer over the edge of this I fell, managing, however, to grasp a branch 

 of a fallen tree ; luckily I was just out of the full force of the 

 cascade— had it been otherwise I must have been wrenched from my 

 hold and dashed to pieces on the rocks beneath — and was able to hoist 

 myself up again. I did a little rather ineffectual sweeping, but did 

 not stop at Loch Tilt, as I wished to reach Braemar or Inverey before 

 nightfall. The dusk falls very early in these silent mountain-encircled 

 glens, and as the path through Glen Tilt is quite obsolete in some 

 places, leading into marshy ground in others, it is well not to linger 

 there too long. " In fact, in the whole of its course there are only 

 about half a dozen places where it is possible to get out of it, except 

 by very arduous and often dangerous climbing." Owing, perhaps, to 

 the almost entire absence of trees — there are in places, mostly by the 

 river bank, a few small birches and alders — the glen has a very 

 desolate appearance, and its solitude maybe gauged from the fact that 

 from near Marble Lodge to the Linn of Dee, a distance of about six- 

 teen or seventeen miles, I met only four people, and retracing my 

 steps two days later, a similar number. These were not wayfarers, 

 but the occupiers of the one or two lodges passed. The fact is, the 

 path through Glen Tilt is simply a little used right of way through 

 the Forest of Athol, land given up entirely to shooting. 



I started next day for Loch na Gair (Lochnagar), as not only is 

 the Braemar scenery very fine, but the district is one well worked by 

 Dr. White, who obtained there a number of good Wiynchota . Fortune, 

 however, was not with me ; it commenced to drizzle soon after my 

 departure, and the mist gradually thickened ; Diptera were always 

 with me, even during the strongest downpour ; a little way out of 

 Castleton the Clova footpath turns off to the left, passing Loch 

 Callatar, where I spent some time collecting. All the roadside pools 

 and ditches were overhauled, resulting in a number of Gerris 

 CostcB and Corixce ; unfortunately — and this was the Fate that 

 pursued me in all my collecting— nine-tenths of the Corixce were 



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