* For those unfamiliar with Scottish jargon, 'driech' (usually applied to the weather) means cold, damp, foggy, dull, wet - in general miserable.
Mc.Dreich’s specialisation was proctology as that was the only ‘opening’ available to him after his apprenticeship as a Junior Hospital doctor.
Proctology: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/proctology
His daughters, Morag and Fiona, were quick to change their unfortunate surnames once they were old enough. They must have had a mother, but could find out very little from their father, who brought them up with 'Auntie Chrissie'. The poor girls had little idea about their background.
McDreich senior had a secret vice (some might even say, his only redeeming quality): he collected butterflies. Morag and Fiona were aware of that and indeed sometimes accompanied their father when he searched for Scottish rarities such as Small Blue and Dingy Skipper. But they were never allowed to see his collection. Morag recalled how father once shouted ‘melanic’ and went chasing some unfortunate ‘black’ fritillary across dunes on the Moray coast: the butterfly got away.
After Fergus died, Morag (now Mrs. McDonald) and Fiona (a geography teacher) had the task of sorting out their father's estate and came across his butterflies. They knew enough to realise that the rows upon rows of Chequered Skippers showed obsessive behaviour. There were also huge numbers of specimens of Browns, notably Scotch Argus from many parts of Scotland. But then another cabinet caught the sisters' attention. It was labelled 'Ligea Brown' and to their untrained eyes looked just like all the other Scotch Argus specimens. Nonetheless, Morag and Fiona did an internet search and found the Erebia ligea, a close relative of the Scotch Argus, Erebia aethiops, did not apparently occur in Scotland.
They looked carefully at the specimens and found that on the pin beneath the butterflies were tiny labels with writing something like
03:VIII:1987 Corrour Shooting Lodge. Corrour is at Grid Ref: NN412696. It would be difficult to find a more remote location anywhere in the British Isles.
So what did Fergus McDreich know that sent him searching at Corrour? Or had he imported some larvae from say Bergen in Norway - where the writer found them in abundance flying with Camberwell Beauties on the edge of a wood in the 1980s. Maybe the gruff McDreich finally unwound and had a good laugh from beyond the grave at the mystery he had left behind.
Jack
