Viewing page 66 of 111

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

128.

30.6.54, cont.  Farr Bay, Bettyhill.

Taken at 2.  (Dunes, &c.)

Sawfly:  Nematine ♂︎ = 
Pimpla brevicornis  ♂︎, ant. 21.
Glypta trochanterata  2♀︎♀︎, ant. both 30.
Campoplegids 2 = Nepiera concinna?  ♂︎ & ♀︎, ant. 29 & 30.
Thersilochid  ♀︎.
Phradis minutus  ♀︎, ant. 12.
Opius cf. fuscus m.  ♀︎, small, ant. only 23.
Aphidius renominatus  ♀︎, ant. 16.
Chalcid (? 1 mtd. or not).
Hemipteron:  not mtd.

NB.  Contents of 1 & 2 not kept separate.


1st July 1954.

Still very windy with falling glass, but milder out of the wind:  mainly fine & some hot sun, but several light showers prevented much sweeping for insects after 11 AM.  Left hotel at 10:15 & walked to Invernaver bridge to lochan at foot of cliffs W. of same & swept in several semi-dry kettle-holes on moraine & here & there below cliffs in shelter.  Went up cliffs but found a very poor flora & really nothing of interest.

Had lunch at 1 P.M. & then went up to & across the moor (named Creag Ruadh on 1" Ord. Map) to the large lochan with an island = Loch-a-Chleibh! AWS. - surrounded by a floating scraw & at S.W. of lochan found a large area of Carex filiformis flowering profusely.


129.

1.7.54, cont.  Creag Ruadh, W. of Bettyhill, cont.

Next passed another lochan - near this saw several plants of Scilla verna still in flower! - to the N. with deep water on W. side & small scarp above same with much Arctostaphylos uva-ursi & Juniperus communis.  Then made N.W. with Juniper increasing all the way till in places it dominated the vegetation.

The nearer we got to the coast the more sandy the soil became & the richer & more varied the flora, with Dryas, Carex capillaris, Schoenus nigricans, Fragaria, Rubus saxatilis (in a few places only!), Sax. aizoides  sax. oppositifolia, Seapink, Hazel, Populus tremula (a few patches) & eventually Primula scotica (not in flower)) in patches here & htere, & a very great mixture of plants usually not growing in close proximity to each other.  Came home via the NE. corner of the promontory & along W. side of the Haver estuary & on the bare wet sands at sea level found an extraordinary abundance of Carex incurva, but nothing else of importance.  Saw lots of large ♀︎♀︎ of bombus lucorum & a few brightly coloured B. muscorum, & 1♀︎ Psithyrus distinctus, but no workers.  On sandy bluffs where we had afternoon tea Daisy spotted a small dark ant which proved to be Myrmica lobicornis, but only one other ☿ of same species found, though Formica fusca common & a nest discovered full of pupae.  Reached hotel again at 6.30 P.M.