Cooke: Insect- Hunting in Scotland. 



151 



The disappointment of finding all your captures spoiled by the jolting 

 of a deep descent, together with the heat of a summer's day (such as an 

 entomologist delights in, for then his game is most plentiful), is very 

 discouraging, whereas, had they been set on the spot there would be 

 some pleasure in looking at them when brought home. I have seen 

 C r ambus fur catellus in countless numbers at an elevation of over 3,000 

 feet, and a lovely thing it is when just emerged from the pupa, but 

 carry it down in a pill box on a hot day and it will not be worth a pin. 

 Ericellus is on lower ground, but I never met with it in plenty. The 

 EpipJiron on Craig Maigdaiith are the largest and brightest in colour of 

 any I have seen. I have never paid much attention to Coleoptera 

 when in Scotland, but have taken Garabus glabratus plentifully ; also a 

 pair of Arvensis at sugar, the only ones I ever met with, though I 

 suppose it is regarded as a common species. In Diptera I have noticed 

 the Tabanidse in great abundance and variety, and very vicious in hot 

 weather, but for the last two summers there have been very few flies 

 of any kind, and last year bees were very scarce, so much so that the 

 country people remarked to me that there were no bees in the heather 

 bloom, although there was a profusion of flowers of all kinds. I never 

 saw Scotland so gay with flowers as last August. 



With regard to the peasantry of Scotland I may say that I have 

 found them very honest, and I feel a degree of trust in them that I 

 feel nowhere else ; the only beings I fear in the Highlands at night are 

 travelling tinkers and gipsies. Owls also have occasionally caused a 

 funny sensation at the roots of my hair when their extraordinary 

 noises were not expected. The Scotch are very reserved ; it is difficult 

 to get information out of them, and some are superstitious, perhaps 

 those of Irish extraction, of which there are many near Roy Bridge, 

 where we tried a moth trap, leaving it out all night on- a wall where 

 the light, unfortunately, shone across the village. Mr. Buxton came 

 next morning from his fishing box, Corry Hoyle, to tell us that we 

 had better shut up our moth traps, as the peasantry had got it into their 

 heads that we were making signals for some purpose that would not be 

 to their interest, and we should be mobbed if we persisted in showing 

 the light at night. Again during the last summer I was sitting 

 chatting with the mistress of the house out of doors at Moy (an old 

 woman, upwards of 70 years of age), and she said, " Mr. Cooke, do you 

 know that you are known about here as the ghost of Lochaber, and 

 when your light is seen the people of Lochaber (a district of perhaps 

 150 square miles) dare not travel the road by night for fear of you ? " 

 I usually sugar along the highroad, putting it on the posts that mark 



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