AUGUST 169 



off their brood, long since, of course, strong upon the 

 wing. To our surprise we find the red-billed Chough, 

 usually a bird of the sea-cliffs, haunting the precipices 

 of Snowdon, where apparently it nests in the shafts of 

 the disused copper-mines. The Welsh Rooks, too, 

 though they do not range so high, are fond of a 

 change to the mountain sheep-walks as soon as 

 nesting duties are over. 



Such uplands have their characteristic insects, as 

 seen in the Lake District, where we meet with the 

 Mountain Ringlet, a scarce, dull-coloured, sub-alpine 

 butterfly. Or further, crying truce to the birds, 

 one may range the line of crags in search of rare 

 plants, to find shady recesses where water drips 

 from cushions of saxifrage and hanging fringes of 

 moss, to reach with doubtful foothold the rose 

 lychnis, restricted to a few rocky ledges of a single 

 fell, or to mark underfoot the Alpine lady's mantle 

 with its fingered leaflets silken-fringed. The 

 ledges are thick with mountain plants as we push 

 up this narrow gulley, so steep that the loose stones 

 underfoot slip and roll. There is a dank wall of rock 

 on either side, and at length as the rill slides down one 

 of the steps of its water-worn staircase^ the smooth 

 face of stone, slippery with spray and greenery, bars 

 further progress. 



One bird we never fail to meet with in the most 

 remote and rocky of mountain solitudes, namely, the 



