1891.] ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. 2OI 



At the home they have left, remains a sufficient number to get up 

 another exodus in due season (" Encyc. Brittanica" condensed). 



We thus see that the Buffaloes congregate for procreation; the 

 Wolves for mutual assistance in hunting, and the Lemmings to 

 search for food, when the supply at home is insufficient for their 

 support. 



Zoology, as a part of animal history, gives us accounts of 

 similar congregations and migrations of other animals, congre- 

 gating and migrating together, for different reasons. Swallows, 

 Cranes, Blackbirds, Reedbirds and Pigeons, going North or 

 South, according to the season, to avoid the cold. Wild Ducks 

 and Geese going North to procreate, in seclusion, where their 

 great enemy, man, is at a distance, and where their food is in 

 abundance.* 



Some kinds of caterpillars, in their migrations, in passing over 

 our railroads in the far West, have so anointed the rails with their 

 carcasses, crushed by the passing wheels, as to impede the pro- 

 gress of the trains. The great herds of Buffaloes, at the times 

 of their congregations, have sometimes also seriously impeded 

 the progress of the railroad trains. This may have been one 

 reason for destroying and exterminating the Buffaloes. Another 

 reason appears to have been the desire to weaken the Indians by 

 destroying their food. The profit accruing from their hides and 

 horns was,' no doubt, another reason. These three principal in- 

 terests being in conjunction, the Buffaloes had to go. 



Now, in view of the above facts, or supposed facts, it becomes 

 an interesting Conjecture as to what is the Divine intention in 

 endowing animals with such destructive instincts. The Human 

 animals in their instinctive struggles as to procreation, food, 

 homes and other worldly possessions, proceed to congregate into 

 armies, with their weapons of war, and so proceed, with all con- 

 ceivable craft and force, to thin out the human crop on the earth, 

 in their struggles with each other (just as do the Buffaloes), and 



* In the park of Schloss Ruhleben, according to a local correspondent of a Berlin journal, 

 a Stork set up his house some years ago, and regularly every Spring has returned to his 

 nest, along with his " wife." There was a doubt expressed last year whether it was the 

 same bird who returned year after year. In order to prove the matter, a steel ring was 

 fastened around the left leg of the male Stork, and the name of his European residence 

 engraved upon the ring. When the Stork again appeared this present Spring, he had a 

 ring on each leg. His human friends in his Eastern home had fastened a silver ring to his 

 right leg, and on it was engraved the inscription, " India sends her greeting to Germany." 

 Christian Intelligencer. 



