A RAMBLE UP BURNHOPE. I05 



stone," that is, a shale metamorphosed by contact with the 

 whin, when the latter was intruded in a molten state. I 

 thought surely there must be whin here, but though I 

 searched high and low I could find none, only some fine- 

 grained dark blue crystaHne sandstone, very like whin, and 

 coming out below the light grey beds of what I took to be 

 metamorphosed shale. At first I took it to be whin, but it 

 seemed to be distinctly stratified, and several experts, to whom 

 I have since showed a specimen, declare it not to be whin. 

 Thus my whinstone search ended in failure. 



As I had now got further up the hillside among the heather, 

 I turned again, for a little, to the flies and the mosses. A 

 very beautiful member of the Syrphidae ( Serkojiiym borealts, 

 Fin.), with the abdomen brightly striped with yellow, was 

 humming about, and a little patience and cautious stalking 

 resulted in the capture of two or three specimens. I was more 

 anxious to find another species of the same genus, very like 

 Boreahs, but with the abdominal stripes narrower and whiter, 

 S. lapponica, L., but though I sometimes thought I had got 

 one, it always turned out to be Borealis. Then there were a 

 number of " Daddies " about among the heather, and I am 

 very fond of daddies, notwithstanding their annoying pro- 

 pensity of losing their legs. One especially attracted my 

 attention, a little brown fly, about the size of the well known 

 Winter Gnat (Trichocera hiemalis. JDeg.), but with beautifully 

 spotted wings, and their venation also quite peculiar. I had 

 never seen it before, and only succeeded in capturing two 

 males. It turned out to be Idioptera pulchella, Mg., one of the 

 Limnobidae. 



The mosses also were quite different from those on the 

 wooded rocks further down the glen, and they too came in for 

 a little attention. A grey shaggy, or as we would say in 

 Scotland, touzie looking moss, with olive green leaves, pro- 

 duced into long white hair-like points, which gave to it its 

 hoary aspect, was growing on the rocks, where they buried 

 themselves beneath the grass and heather. I knew it to be 

 Racomitrium languinosum, Brtd., a common moorland moss, 



