ro8 Wild Life in Wales 



Little Dee where the current was too strong for it. It was 

 rolled over several times before being swept into the pool 

 below, but ere I could hasten to its assistance, it had 

 recovered itself and got to land again. As it chanced, 

 however, the landing had been effected on the same side 

 as that from which it had started ; and the little creature, 

 more alarmed at the approach of its would-be rescuer than 

 at its near escape from drowning, fearlessly dashed into the 

 stream again, at the lower end of the pool, and this time 

 succeeded in crossing in safety, and was soon scampering off 

 with its dam as if nothing unusual had happened. 



That pretty little mountain moth, Haworth's minor (Celcsna 

 haworthit) is abundant all over these moors, and, having 

 seen it on Arenig during the previous autumn, I took the 

 opportunity to-day of looking for its larvae. Cotton Grass 

 (Eriophorum vaginatuni), its food plant, grows in abundance 

 everywhere, but here most of the tufts are surrounded by 

 water an inch or two deep, and, until the last week or two, 

 must have been buried under snow, and, as it melted, 

 pressed down by its weight so as to be actually under water. 

 Notwithstanding these adverse conditions, however, the 

 tiny caterpillars were active and vigorous in the stems of the 

 grass, living almost, if not quite, a sub-aqueous life, and 

 appearing to revel in it. Numbers of these, also, must be 

 eaten by sheep, which are particularly partial to the Cotton 

 Grass in spring, cropping the stems, in which the larvae live, 

 close down to the ground, or even raking off the soil to 

 follow it below. In September, when the moths were 

 swarming, I noticed a female laying her eggs on a flowering 

 stem of Poafluitans growing in a pool a foot deep, so that I 

 conclude the larvae may also live in the stems of that grass, 

 though in winter they, or the eggs, must be entirely under 

 water. Where the caterpillars pupate, in situations of this 

 kind, is something of a puzzle. Many of the tufts of 

 Cotton Grass, on which they feed, are growing in places that 

 are hardly ever dry, and are liable to be submerged by 

 every hour or two's rain, so that, unless we are to suppose 

 that all the larvae reared in such spots are destined to perish, 

 we must conclude that the pupae are not inconvenienced by 



