i 3 o THE SCOTTISH NATURALIST 



ranging Hemianax ephippiger a native of Africa was taken 

 in a Dublin park, the occurrence, according to Mr K. J. 

 Morton who records it, 1 being but the second for the British 

 Isles. 



In other parts of the world remarkable flights of Dragon- 

 flies have also been witnessed, such as that encountered by 

 the P. & O. steamer Victoria in the Indian Ocean, hundreds 

 of miles from land, on nth April 1896, when numerous 

 examples of Pantala flavescens entered the chart-room and 

 cabins at night ; and the huge " flocks " of JEschna bonariensis 

 that are seen speeding across the South American pampas 

 in advance of the violent storm-wind known as the " pampero." 

 But the occurrences already cited are ample enough for our 

 purpose. Strong of wing as they are they have been 

 observed in "countless numbers" flying steadily up a valley 

 in the Alps against the wind disaster at times overtakes 

 these migrating Dragon-flies, in common with other insects, 

 when crossing the sea. In the Entomologist (vol. vi., p. 457) 

 it is related by Walker that in the Mediterranean in April 

 1873 the yacht Aline sailed through many miles of dead 

 insects from the time of leaving Tunis, all along the Malta 

 Channel, and on to Italy, the sea was covered with large 

 brown butterflies, moths of all sizes, and dragon - flies, 

 evidently just dead, as they had apparently not been long 

 in the water. 



The migrations of Locusts are, as has already been 

 remarked, events of which every one has heard, and that 

 therefore need not be illustrated by quotations here. Their 

 magnitude is often such as completely to transcend our 

 powers of conception. Think of a flight 2000 sq. miles in 

 extent, and composed of such a multitude of locusts that, 

 assuming each to weigh only the sixteenth of an ounce, their 

 combined weight would amount to 42,850,000,000 tons! 

 These are actual estimates that have been published regard- 

 ing a swarm which passed over the Red Sea in November 

 1889. Official accounts from both the Old and the New 

 World furnish most interesting and astonishing data. The 

 graphic description given by Darwin, whom one does not 



1 Ent. Mo. Mag., January 191 4, p. 16. 



