LEPIDOPTEKA OF ASSYNT DISTRICT OF SUTHERLANDSHIRK. 33 



The picturesque banks of the Inver, which are very precipitous 

 and winding, are extremely sheltered from all winds, and as for 

 the first two miles or so they have been planted with similar trees 

 to those around the Culag Hotel, and in addition there is a fairly 

 luxuriant natural growth of sallow, birch and sweet gale, they 

 form a very suitable sugaring ground. 



The whole district around Loch Inver is extremely rocky and 

 irregular, with numerous small lochs in the hollows, and where 

 there is shelter from the prevailing west winds there is a luxuriant 

 growth of sallow of several species. Myrica gale abounds all over 

 the district, as do the two common Ericas and Calluna vulgaris. 



One of the drawbacks is that there is very little vaecinium, 

 and what there is consists entirely of the most universally dis- 

 tributed species, V. myrtillus. The nearly allied Arctostaphylos 

 uva ursi is locally a common plant. 



Lochinver gets the full effect of the Gulf Stream, and 

 for the latitude the climate is extremely mild ; snow very 

 seldom lies in winter, and the absence of severe frost is 

 proved by the presence of the common tree fuchsia, which will 

 stand all there is unprotected in the gardens. The rainfall in 

 Assynt is very heavy. I gather that it almost always rains in 

 the winter ; certainly even this year there was rain more or less 

 on the majority of the days during my stay, and I learned from 

 Mr. Whittle that there was much more rain after my departure. 



The mildness of the climate has produced its effect on the 

 Lepidoptera ; there is very little melanism, and in some instances 

 the type occurring is distinctly southern. The most remarkable 

 is unquestionably Epinephile jurtina, some of the specimens 

 differing very little from those I have from the South of France, 

 and from Spain — that is to say, they come very near to var. 

 hispulla; Hub. 



We know that this form occurs in the Seilly Islands, but it 

 will come as a surprise to lepidopterists to be told that it is also 

 found in the North of Scotland. On the other hand the form of 

 Pieris napi from the bleak and treeless Inchnadamph, fourteen 

 miles inland, and amongst the mountains, if not actually the 

 Alpine and Arctic form, var. bryoniae, Och., comes nearer to it 

 than any British race I have seen. 



One of the most abundant species to be found at Lochinver, 

 and the principal reason of my second visit, was Peronea hastiana. 

 On the afternoon of the day before I left Lochinver in 1920 I 

 discovered that the sallows everywhere contained enormous 

 numbers of the larvae of this species, and the forms bred being 

 so fine and variable I was very keen to get a further and larger 

 supply of larvae. 



Just outside the coastline, blocking up the entrance to the 

 fjord, and some three miles from its head, is the little island of 

 Soyea, entirely treeless, and perhaps one thousand yards long 



