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THE YOUNG NATURALIST. 



fire, and the train having to be stopped every few miles for water to be poured 

 over the heated bearings and smoking timbers, we did not reach Llanberis 

 until after 9 instead of about 6.30. We had originally intended to sugar on 

 this, the first night of our holiday, but from some reason, what I have now 

 forgotten, we had changed our minds, and we were now thankful for having 

 done so. We had previously engaged beds at the " Padarn Yilla Hotel," 

 and here we had a capital tea, for which we were quite ready. Let me say 

 that we found this hotel, which is close to the station, very well ordered and 

 everything first-class at very reasonable terms. After a stroll round the 

 village of Dolbadarn, for the true Llanberis lies two miles away, we retired 

 for the night to sleep, perchance to dream of the good things (including 

 swarms of Chrysomela cerealis) we were to take on the morrow. For my- 

 self the morrow came full soon, for I was awakened shortly after daybreak by 

 the wind howling and moaning round the house, and converting my partly 

 opened window into a veritable seolian harp, but I was rewarded for this 

 intrusion upon my rest by the glorious view of the early sunrise which I had 

 from my bedroom window, which overlooked the ancient Dolbadarn Castle, 

 beyond which the whole of the celebrated Pass of Llanberis shimmered in the 

 morning sun, the horizon being formed by Moel Seabod. I wished I was an 

 artist that I might put the scene before me on canvas, but I had to be con- 

 tent with a pencil sketch, after which I went back to bed and slept till seven 

 o* clock. After breakfast we started off in high spirits, our destination being, 

 of course, the main peak (Ywiddfa or " the conspicuous ") by the ordinary 

 Llanberis route. Even at this early hour, and on a Sunday morning too in 

 Wales, we were accosted by " guides," who desired to prevent us finding our 

 way, but discarding all these we pushed on anxious to see what the first cap- 

 ture was to be. As soon as we left the plantation behind us and reached the 

 open, we left the track for some marshy ground, where we disturbed a few 

 specimens of Ccenonympha pamphilus of large size, indeed so large that Mr. 

 Wilding had some difficulty in convincing me they were not C. Davus. We 

 soon found, however, better game in the person of Aplwdius lapponum, 

 which we found, sparingly at first but abundantly afterwards as we reached 

 a higher elevation, in the sheep dung so plentifully bestrewing the slopes. 

 Along with it were plenty of Aphodius aler, of both the red and black forms, 

 and the commoner Cercyous, as also a Tricopteryx not yet determined. We 

 hunted in every likely spot for our great desideratum, Chrysomela cerealis, 

 but without any but a negative result. As we gradually ascended we took 

 one or two specimens of Pterostichus cethiops, but did not meet with this in 

 anything like the numbers we were led to expect. Patrobus assimilis also 

 occurred and Nebria brevicollis, but not in any great numbers, and not at all 



