i8 93 .] THE BRITISH NATURALIST. 195 



here is Harpalus lotus although not strictly a mountain species. A 

 Havpalus similar but with black instead of red legs like H. latus arrests 

 our attention and proves to be H. ignavus. At this elevation several 

 melanic forms of Notiophilus aquaticus and N. pahistris occur, while 

 Calathus microptevus is by no means rare. C. melanocephalus which on 

 real mountains shows a darker thorax, and in its extreme form on the 

 Irish mountains is distinguished as C. nubigena, here is as brightly 

 coloured as the ordinary red thoraxed lowland type. 



The next noteworthy capture is an Elater, its elytra mottled with a 

 thin golden pubescence. This is Corymbites kolosericeus. We have only 

 seen this insect from these or similar moors although the books do 

 not mention it as a hill or heather loving species. The summit of the 

 ridge, but curiously not the highest point, is crowned by what the 

 casual tourist usually calls with double inaccuracy a ' Roman camp.' 

 For these remains are neither of Roman origin, nor were they ever in 

 the strict sense of the word, a camp. The Keltic word is Car, the 

 qualifying epithet of so many of the Welsh hills and obvious enough 

 in such a name as Carnarvon. Here we can barely trace the faint 

 impression of a ditch and mound surrounding a circular enclosure. 

 Its history, builders, purpose, ages ago forgotten, who may tell what 

 part these ramparts, their defenders and assailants took in the dim 

 confused tribal feuds of Cymry and Kelt ? To us they only mutely 

 tell— 



" Of old unhappy far off things 

 And battles long ago." 



Where the slopes flattened out towards the top of the ridge many 

 small stones were lying scattered among the heather which here grew 

 shorter and more diffuse. Turning over one of these we notice a flat 

 looking beetle, black, with red legs and conspicuous red shoulders. 

 We recognised him at once Cymindis vaporarionim, a very local insect 

 and one which never occurs except among heather and only very 

 sparingly there. This capture revives the flagging interest of the 

 chase and we take a dozen or more of this Cymindis within a very few 

 yards. One of the commonest species here is Olisthopus rotundatus, and 

 with them we find now and then a beetle of about the same size and 

 superficially not unlike that insect, but it appears more shiny, and 

 looked at closer seems to resemble rather a large Dyschirius. It has 

 the same short antennae and globular thorax ; still it is no Dyschivius, 

 the anterior legs are evidenty different. This, indeed, is none other 

 than Miscodera arctica, a fine addition to the day's captures. It is a 

 true northern species, from Scandinavia, Lapland, Siberia, Alaska, 

 Newfoundland it has been reported. Here in Britain it is exclusively 

 a mountain form always associated like the Cymindis with heather and 

 in all probability a relic of the age of ice, and perhaps native here in 



