A Rise of Iron Duns 301 



a little further to the east, it is sometimes known as a 

 " Methody devil," owing to its so frequently nesting in the 

 chapel roofs. The Swallow, and the Martin, both go by 

 the name of Gwennol, the latter being sometimes dis- 

 tinguished as Gwennol-y-maeS) or " house martin," and 

 Murwennol ; the former as Gwenfol. The Sand Martin is 

 Gwennol-ddtyr, or Gwennol-y-dwfr, " water swallow," occasion- 

 ally Gwennol-y-glennydd. 



Many Swallows tarried till near the end of October ; a 

 Martin, at Llangowr, till I2th November. Sand Martins 

 leave early ; in 1906, not one was seen after 25th July, on 

 which date, happening to walk down to the mouth of the 

 river in the evening, to watch some people perch-fishing, I 

 found a flock of many hundreds skimming over the lake. 

 These greatly outnumbered the locally breeding stock, and 

 were, no doubt, the assembled Martins from a considerably 

 extended area, making ready to leave the country. When 

 they had settled to roost on the coarse herbage growing 

 over " the lagoon," their twittering was audible at quite a 

 distance, and was kept up till long after dark. Ere they 

 retired to rest that night, they, and the Swifts, and Swallows, 

 had made a sumptuous banquet off a delicate little " Iron 

 Dun," which was hatching in myriads over the lake, from 

 an hour or so before dusk, until it became too dark to see. 

 The fly is either the Cloeon diptera of Ronald's Fly-fisher's 

 Entomology, or a very closely allied species, it being nearly 

 indistinguishable from his figure of " The Jenny Spinner," 

 though in its metamorphosis it differs a little from his 

 description. 



It is an insect whose acquaintance I have made in various 

 parts of the country at about this season of the year, 

 particularly on lakes of rather peaty bottom. To-night it 

 was rising everywhere, on the water, but most abundantly 

 at a greater distance from the shore than the eye could 

 detect it ; and the swarms, thence derived, came floating 

 landwards in a continuous mazy cloud, that drifted over, 

 and quickly covered, everything with which it came in 

 contact. Failing any other resting place, they fell on the 

 grass, as far as a hundred yards inshore, like a gentle 



