THE YOUNG NATURALIST. 



207 



f uscescenletta, one specimen each of two species of Gelec/tia, which I have not 

 been able to name, and a fine female of antiquana, with swarms of Scojoaria 

 frequentella. I also had the mortification of finding a wing of I), capreolella 

 in a spider's web, but no further evidence of this species was forthcoming. 



The paucity of species found at Tan-y-Bwlch was no doubt chiefly attri- 

 butable to the persistent rain, and I feel convinced that the locality would 

 well repay careful collecting. There are splendid oak and birch woods all 

 round, with plenty of other trees intermixed, and varied undergrowth, as wel 

 as open moors and bogs, all within easy reach. 



At Bedd Gelert, S. truncicolella occurred with C. pinetellus, and a very 

 worn & rectangulata. A walk up Snowdon, on a fairly fine day, produced 

 nothing more interesting than one A. lucernea, but he was a very fine dark 

 one. I was too late for C.furcatellus, which has been taken there in some 

 abundance. 



Pen-y-Gwrid looks like a rich locality, but, like Tan-y-Bwlch, I cannot 

 vouch for it from experience. Larvse of 2V. ziczac, C. reclusa, and P. has- 

 tiana were common on the sallows, reclusa being still very small. Ccesiaia 

 was abundant on the heathy slopes of Glydyr with a few olivaia and didy- 

 mata ; but an afternoon given up to collecting produced no micros but 8. 

 lacunana and micana, and G. ericetella, which was decidedly disappointing. 

 But the glorious mountain walks and climbs in this neighbourhood make me 

 always feel envious of those who have an opportunity of spending some 

 length of time there. Many times have I stayed a night or two at that 

 delightful inn where Owen and his wife, as hearty, homely a couple as you 

 can wish to see, always give you that comfortable welcome you never get at 

 the showy tourists' hotels. I shall never forget one of my first visits there, 

 when coming up Nant Gwynant with my knapsack on my back, and having 

 just reached the bend in the road, from which perhaps the most beautiful 

 view in North Wales is obtained, with Llyn Gwynant and the lovely, well 

 wooded and watered valley lying at your feet, and stretching down to Bedd 

 Gelert, beyond which it seems to be hemmed in by Moel Hebog, while the 

 bare slopes of Aran and Cynicht rise to your right and left. As I began 

 almost regretfully to leave the soft beauties of the valley for the rocky deso- 

 lation into which the road suddenly plunges at that point, I looked up to 

 see two magnificent kites, with their long forked tails, circling without an 

 effort in mid-air, and watched them for over half-an-hour sailing in huge 

 circles one after the other the whole time, with the slightest motion of tail 

 or wing that I could perceive, each circle being, as near as I could judge, 

 half-a-mile in diameter. Kites are very rarely seen now in Wales, and even 

 buzzards are becoming scarce. This last visit I only saw two, one on a 



