124 THE EXTOMOLOGIi=!T's RECORD. 



remember on one occasion, travelling with my younger brother to 

 Llanfairfechan and then on to Penm:enmawr, along that wonderful 

 road with the sea shimmering in the sunlight on the left and the 

 glorious mountain towering on our right. Those of you who know 

 the road will recollect that at one part it is actually hewn out of the 

 solid rock. Entomologists pass not these rocks lightly and unheeding 

 — they are deserving of your closest attention — for, in the crevices in 

 little rocks sheltered from the wind, the little delicately pencilled 

 insect is sitting with outstretched wings merely awaiting capture. 

 Not that this is the best or surest spot by any manner of means ; 

 nevertheless, these rocks are the scene of some of our earliest successes, 

 and though, for some reason, they are not as good as they used to be 

 years ago, nevertheless a careful search will generally be rewarded 

 with at least one specimen, and if one, in all probability two, for they 

 are a knightly race, and where the female is you may depend the male 

 is not very far away, in fact, a pair of beauties very frequently greets 

 the delighted eye at one and the same moment. To us these rocks 

 have also other interests, for one of my brothers, in blind enthusiasm, 

 clambered one day so far up the hurtling precipice, that we despaired 

 of ever getting him down again, and fancied that we should have to 

 leave him, a monument for ever on the mountain-side, and a petrified 

 warning to imprudent collectors. But more memorable are they still 

 for the disastrous accident to my father, which occurred just above, and 

 so unfortunately lamed him for life. These little insects are responsible 

 for a great deal, but, after all, we must recollect that if they did bring him 

 woe they likewise gave him a solace and joy which only the true naturalist 

 can know. One other point about these particular rocks. In the old 

 days when we used to stop at Penm;enmawr, we used to attend the 

 Congregational Church just about a quarter of a mile from this most 

 . interestnig part of the road. What more natural than that we should 

 extend our walk after service along this road, or that our gaze should 

 be occasionally turned upon the noble crags that abutted upon it '? 

 And thus the quiet Sabbath had its revenge, a cruel and malicious one 

 it seemed ! For the experienced eye had a special knack on Sundays 

 of spotting a coveted specimen just about six feet out of reach, and 

 then there was no hope left except to disturb its sacred and holy calm 

 by volleys of gravel or other handy ammunition. Fancy those peace- 

 ful and eminently respectable Welsh churchgoers on their homeward 

 way, scandalised by the somewhat unwonted spectacle of four or five 

 apparently intelligent individuals intensely absorbed in pelting the 

 face of the frowning rock, with drbris that seemed merely to fall back 

 upon their immaculate Sunday toilets. And then, when at last the 

 insect, always lethargic under anything like ordinary circumstances, 

 was persuaded that something unusual had come to pass, it would 

 spread its wings, and it was just about 100 to 1 that a gust of wind 

 would come to its aid and waft it away to some most inaccessible spot. 

 Somehow or other this always happened on Sunday. Moral : If you 

 must admire the rocky scenery on the Sabbath, do not let your eye 

 glide over parts out of reach, for it only leads to sorrow and tribulation 

 and to language weird and unholy. I hinted at digressions — this 

 is rather a long one, and to detail the circumstances of this excursion 

 further, except to state that we settled down at the Mountain View 

 Hotel, and that this became afterwards the centre of many excursions 



