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The Naturalist, 



My heart's in the Highlands, wherever I go " — not chasing the 

 wild deer, nor following the roe, but hunting for Exiilis ; and I still 

 hope the life-history of this rich insect is reserved for me to find out, 

 I kept the last one I took alive for eleven days (I caught her on the 

 26th August, 1879), to try to obtain eggs, but she laid none. I have 

 not had more than three or four females altogether, and I never knew 

 one to part with an egg. 



I visited Loch Awe last August for a few days. All I saw at sugar 

 were two or three Fimbria and a few PoJyodon, some dark. By the side 

 of the loch, about five miles up on the south side, I took about thirty 

 Medea in bad condition at the edge of the wood. There were also a 

 quantity of what I thought were Napi, flying in a meadow, and one 

 Aglaia. In the wood were multitudes of common Geometrse, 1 also 

 took by the shore of the loch a large ichneumon, Tragus lutorius, said 

 to feed in larvae of Ocellatus or Atropos. 



With regard to localities that I have seen on my journeys, I think 

 of all places I ever saw, the Trossachs surpasses every other in appear- 

 ance as a collecting ground, but no doubt nearly all the head of Loch 

 Lomond, as well as the foot of Loch Katrine, also the east side of 

 Loch Tay, are grand hunting-grounds ; as is also the country round 

 Pitlochry and Dunkeld, and up the valley of the Tummel along the 

 high road from Pitlochry to Kinloch-Ptannoch, the happy hunting- 

 ground of most collectors who have visited Scotland. Then again, on 

 the west coast there is a fine collecting country round Oban, near 

 which pretty little port Nuhigena has been taken. Further north is' 

 Ballachulish, a magnificent bay, and in the neighbourhood is fine 

 timber and nice ground as far as the entrance to Glencoe, at the other 

 end of which is the great moor of Rannoch, twenty miles across. 



The country round Forres also wants searching ; there is fine timber 

 near Sandhills like our own. The late Mr. E. C. Buxton told me that 

 he had found sugaring most successful about some of the salt-water 

 lochs in the far north. Occulta and other fine noctuse being more 

 abundant there than elsewhere, and he has seen a great part of Scotland 

 and tried nearly every place he visited for insects, though his object 

 was sport — principally fishing. The larva of Alpina is said to feed on 

 Vaccinium Myrtillus, but not having met with the species myself, I can 

 give no more information about it ; and Noctua sobrina is another rarity 

 which I have not met with, but which must have been bred in quantity, 

 as it has been lately offered for threepence each. I should advise any- 

 one ascending mountains for the purpose of collecting small things, to 

 take up his setting case and stay and set all worth setting on the spot. 



