LÉPIDOPTEROLOGIE COMPARÉE 97 



land and fell with next to no cultivation, and hère it occurred with 

 Brenthïs selene, Argynnis aglaia and Erebia cethiops. " There 

 were the usual birch trees upon the hill sides and a sprinkling of 

 ancient pine trees in some sheltered places up among the hills " 

 {Entomologiste Vol. XXVII, p. 355). And how eloquently the 

 Gaelic names of thèse wild régions indicate the character of the 

 highland climate, as for a single example, Auchnasheen, Acadh- 

 na-siona, the " fi.eld of rain ". 



In the next county Invernessshire (Easterness and Westerness) 

 — the late Mr. J. H. Leech in 1882 explored Ben Tigh (2.800 ft.), 

 a mountain in the centre some seven miles from Fort Augustus 

 on the Caledonian Canal, and there he observed laidion " flying 

 in swarms in every direction, the spécimens strongly resembling 

 the Hebridean form "; while a little to the south east, Mr. D. H. S. 

 Stewart records tï-phon [laïdion) at Beaunach, hfteen miles north 

 of Kingussie. 



" Beneath the hills " he writes " stretches a vast expanse of 

 purple moorland hère and there exchanging its brightness for the 

 more sombre hues of a peat bog, waving with white cotton-grass, 

 and délicate flowers of P. palustris; the whole air redolent with 

 the fragrant sweet-gale {Myrica gale) and resounding with the 

 ceaseless humming of the bées, and many species of Diptera... " 

 This was in August, 1910 and maies of tiphon were still emerging 

 freshly on the i8th of the month. And m the case of a séries 

 taken in 1892 m this county by Mr. R. Adkm, it is interesting to 

 note that, although there was a considérable variation in the colour, 

 in none were the dots on the hind wmgs prominent, as in many 

 of the Rannoch spécimens (vide infrd). While, spécimens in my 

 own collection from the forest of Rothiemurchus are equally 

 wanting in ocellation, and generally of a very pale colour in both 

 sexes. 



Again in the Island of Skye, off the western coast of Inverness- 

 shire, the Rev. George Gordon descnbes our laidion as " rare, 

 Falls of Glenlatterach "; though my friend Mr. W. G. Sheldon 

 found the bogs in the neighbourhood of Portree — the island 



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