i 9 2 THE BRITISH NATURALIST. [September 



istic. No swallow as yet skims the great salmon pool above the 

 bridge, but the grey wagtails (M. boamla) flit from stone to stone and 

 run along the shallows, and on some rock jutting from the mid-stream 

 you catch sight of the Dipper ( C. aquaticus) and watch him skim along 

 level with the water round the bend. In quieter reaches lower down, 

 where the stream lingers between beds of reeds, we may watch the little 

 grebe and the furtive water-hen. Indeed we might easily spend the 

 whole day by this river's side and follow it as it winds, ' a foiled 

 circuitous wanderer ' among the wooded hills — 



" For twenty miles where the black crow flies five." 



But not thus shall we secure a bottle full of Coleoptera repre- 

 sentative of the hills ; therefore, turning aside from this rock-strewn 

 river bed, we mount a steep rough lane, whose high banks are 

 studded thickly with the first fair April flowers — celandine, violet, 

 primrose. Half buried in the grass on these banks, lie great stones, 

 and beneath them we recognise the common Quedius tvistis and Q. molo- 

 chinus. Also abundantly Calathus cisteloides and C. flavipes. A pair of 

 the red-winged Staphylinus stercoriariotts, however, is a capture better 

 worth noting. There was also a sullen Cychnis rostratus — a beetle 

 which has a curious faculty of creaking when handled. The lane 

 twisted up the side of one of the gorges which break down from the 

 hills into the main valley and quickly led us up into a wood. The 

 trees are mostly larches, just now delicately coloured with the pink 

 blossom and budding emerald needles. Lower down, the sombre 

 spruces make the wood like night, but here through the thin larches 

 the sun streams brightly. Angular blocks of stone, thick with moss, 

 encumber the ground, engrailed now with wood sorrel, as later on it 

 will be with the oak and the beech fern. A bright copper looking 

 ' Staph,' rather common under these stones, is Philonthus decorus and 

 we also note here the blue Carabus catenulatiis. The bark of a decaying 

 log next claims our attention, and we find beneath it, much to our 

 surprise, a couple of Silphce which certainly look like the brown Irish 

 form of atrata. Had this proved to be so the discovery would have 

 been most interesting, as so far the form subrotundata seems to be 

 restricted to Ireland and the Isle of Man. Careful comparison at 

 home however brought out the points of distinction, and we must refer 

 these brown Silphae perhaps most accurately to the variety called 

 bnmnea. This differs from subvotundata in being smaller, of a lighter 

 brown colour, and in shape and sculpture of thorax and elytra similar 

 to the ordinary black type. Of this variety two specimens were found 

 beneath another log within a few yards of the first. A far commoner 

 and more properly necrophagous Stlpha was beaten in vast abundance 

 out of a dead sheep fallen apparently headlong into this wood from 

 the rocks above. This was Stlpha rugosa and with it were many of 



