' The Scottish Naturalist. 99 



leagues (four or five hours' flight), before all tlie cataracts of 

 heaven were let loose to deluge the earth. Slieltered in our 

 house, which shook with the furious blast, we admired the wis- 

 dom of the winged soothsayers, which had so prudently antici- 

 pated the annual epoch of migration. The morrow would have 

 been too late. The insects, beaten down by the tempests of 

 rain, would have been undiscoverable ; all the life on which 

 they subsisted would have taken refuge in the earth." 



. (To be continued.) 



THE LEPIDOPTERA OP MONOEEIFFE HILL. 



By Sir THOMAS MONCREIFFE, Bart. 



( Continued from page 4.6.) 



Hepicdus hcctus. — This insect is not very common at Mon- 

 creiffe, perhaps easily overlooked. I have beaten the males in 

 the day time out of the lower branches of trees standing in the 

 open meadows, and taken them on the wing in the evening. 



H, lupulinus. — Not common at Moncreiffe. I have never 

 taken this insect here above 120 feet, but I have taken hectus 

 up to 500. 



IT. humuli. — Not so common as formerly, probably on account 

 of increased drainage ; usually met with on the moist 

 ground towards the base. I have noticed it, however, up to 

 175 feet above sea level. One evening my son observed a 

 male settle on the leaf of a horse-chesnut tree fully 20 feet 

 from the ground; by getting on my shoulders he shook it into 

 his net. I am not aware if they usually roost so high. 



H. velleda. — This is a most puzzling species, and I cannot but 

 think that we include more than one form that we take here 

 under the name of velleda. It is excessively numerous along 

 the base of Moncreiffe Hill, and wherever the bracken grows, 

 up to about 550 feet above the sea level. The ^ ^ vary in size 

 from i" 3"' to i" 6'". The ? ? from 1" 6'" to 2" i"'. The 

 smallest ? I have has the ground colour of a dirty white, and 

 is, in general appearance, not unlike Hubner's Fig. 21, Carna^ 

 but front-wing a little more produced, and not quite so pointed 

 at the tip. This was taken in cop. with a male (size \" 3"'), 



