18'J5,J 3 



ceutrul band very handsome, almoat purplish, and enclosing an ex- 

 tremely pale and sharply squared orbicular stigma. Hadena adusta, 

 S. oleracea, a beautiful grey form of H pisi, and H. contigua, duller 

 in colour and rather smaller than specimens collected a month earlier 

 in the south of England, complete the list of Noctuae taken at sugar 

 on our first evening. 



The following day was hopelessly wet from early morning to late 

 evening, affording an opportunity of doing justice to our captures of 

 the previous night. Again another wet morning, which cleared a little 

 towards mid-day, when we proceeded on our journey to luchnadamph. 

 The long drive was marred through the mountain tops being enveloped 

 in cloud, the only incident of interest being an attack made by a 

 Peregrine falcon on a young curlew in mid-air. The two fell struggling 

 to the ground, but before w-e were able to run to the spot where they 

 fell, the neck of the curlew was ripped completely open, and we were 

 obliged to kill it at once. The falcon had, of course, flown off before 

 our approach. The hotel at Inchnadamph was filled, as usual, with 

 anglers, but we were fortunate in securing the only two beds that 

 were to be vacant that night, as rain was again commencing, and the 

 next hotel at Lochinver was fourteen miles further on. Despite the 

 weather, we took a long walk in the afternoon up the Traligill Burn 

 towards Ben More of Assynt, in search of the object of our visit to 

 these parts — Jlicracium liyparcticum, Almq., which, though abund- 

 ant in South Greenland, is confined in Britain, so far as is at present 

 known, to this one remote locality, appearing again in Sweden, and 

 thus forming a connecting link between the floras of the two con- 

 tinents. The pitiless downpoor made botany difficult, entomology 

 impossible, and the only animals that seemed really happy under such 

 dismal surroundings were the numerous dippers on the rocks in the 

 bed of the stream. It rained all night and the next morning, every- 

 thing was enveloped in mist. The ascent of any of the mountains 

 was out of the question, so making our way to the river bed, we 

 searched in the shingle, which contains much limestone debris, for the 

 very rare Arenaria norvegica, Gunn., which was discovered here a few 

 years before, and whose only other British habitat is in Unst, the 

 northernmost island of Shetland. Owing probably to the amount of 

 water in the river we found it very sparingly, and the little strand on 

 which it occurred most abundantly four years ago seemed to have 

 disappeared altogether. When the mist lifted, the rain almost ceased 

 for an hour or so, and we climbed to the base of the massive lime- 

 stone cliffs above the hotel, which form so marked a feature in the 



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