MIGRATION AND DISPERSAL OF INSECTS 1 LEPIDOPTEFA. 201 



(as seeins not seldom to be the case) th^se vast flocks wing their way 

 out to sea, although, as a rule, destruction must sooner or later over- 

 take them all, yet occasional stragglers of such powerful flyers may 

 occasionally reach oceanic islands and possibly succeed in establishing 

 their species there." Trinien further notes that he saw I'l/ramcis 

 rardiii fly on board a vessel 90 miles to the west of Tenerift'e, and 

 after a short rest start oft" westward again, and, on another occasion, 

 195 miles west of Sierra Leone, he captured (among other insects that 

 flew on board the steamer "Norseman") ten species of butterflies 

 belonging to the subfamily .Safi/rinae ; this was the more remarkable as 

 the butterflies were slow-flying, shade-frequenting species of Melanitis 

 and ^[>/rah'sis, which haunt dense woods and thickets and avoid the 

 open sunshine altogether. The wind on this occasion, though from 

 the eastward, was not at all strong; the time was noon. 



A marvellous flight of Terias [Kinrma) Um, that evidently had its 

 origin in America, is recorded {I'si/cht', 1875, p. 121) as occurring in 

 1874, when, early on the morning of October 1st, several people living 

 on the northern side of the niain island of Bermuda, perceived what they 

 thought to be a cloud coming from the north-west. This proved, 

 however, to be an immense flight of the small yellow butterfly, Knrewa 

 Um, which, on reaching the shore, divided into two parts, the insects 

 in which spread over the island, flitting about all the open grassy 

 patches and cultivated grounds in a lazy manner, as if fatigued after 

 their long voyage over the deep, whilst the fishermen who were out 

 very early that morning near the reefs, some few miles to the north of 

 the islands, reported that their boats were literally covered with the 

 butterflies. The nearest point of land is Cape Hatteras, in North 

 Carolina, roughly about 600 miles distant. The insect is not one 

 with especially strong powers of flight, and allowing that the flight 

 came from the nearest land point the shortest possil)le way, at a rate 

 of 12 miles per hour, it would only cover 288 miles in 24 hours. Ho 

 that at this rate it would take 50 hours continuous flight to cover the 

 journey. 



Scudder records that Mr. \\ . Hill, of Albany, who spent the 

 month of April, 1894, on the Indian River, Florida, wrote to 

 him concerning the movements of rieris (Ancia) monuste as follows : 

 "During the last ten days of my stay there, I observed that 

 Pieris inonii.^ite seemed impelled to move southward. At first there 

 were but few of them to be seen, but their numbers steadily increased 

 until at the end of ten days, when the time came for me to take my 

 departure, many hundreds could be seen at any one time during the 

 day, when not stopping momentarily at some hed of flowers, moving 

 in one direction. If obstruction were encountered these butterflies 

 flew over or around it and then went on in the same southerly 

 direction." 



Notes on the distribution of tiie British Coleoptera. 



By W. K. SHAlir. 



{('ii)iti)iin'(] from p. 178). 



Having eliminated from our consideration of the British coleoptera 



the exceptions which we have already discussed — species e(jually 



abundant everywhere, those introduced by man, and sucb us luuv be 



treated as cjuasi-parasitical— there still reniains to be dealt with *^ the 



