MIGRATION AND DISPERSAL OF INSECTS ! COLEOPTERA. 355 



s, I believe, likely to publish the particulars of this occurrence, and 

 his own observations thereon, I can only mention the circumstance as 

 confirmatory evidence of the Ben Nevis records, and of the fact that 

 lowland beetles are carried up by ascending currents of air, and probably 

 travel great distances at a high elevation. This, no doubt, explains 

 certain records we have of the sudden appearance of great numbers 

 of some particular species in a locality where they could not have been bred, 

 or where even they may have been previously unknown, as, for instance, 

 Hister 'i-macnlatm, on Southsea common (see Fowler, Culcoptera Brit. 

 Isles, iii., p. 201). I believe the i'oceindlidac are often the subjects of this 

 sort of magical appearance, and I think, although I have none that I 

 can quote, that there are several records of their sudden visitation in 

 swarms. I have one note which rather bears on this subject. Mysia 

 oblonnoiiuttata is a species (ladybird) attached to fir trees, which, I think, 

 rarely flies, and which I certainly never took on the wing, but, on one 

 occasion, my friend, Mr. R. Newstead, of Chester (being engaged on an in- 

 vestigation into the food of some of our common birds) , shot a number of 

 starlings as they were hawking about over a fir wood. Their crops were 

 filled to repletion with the remains of Mi/sia oblonnonuttata. This was in 

 the evening, in spring, and it proves, as the starlings certainly took them 

 on the wing, that some of our most sedentary beetles have then' JJi(jht times, 

 and. on such occasions, often rise to high altitudes, hence we can under- 

 stand how they may be caught up by cyclonic or vortical air currents 

 to very high altitudes, and be carried immense distances. Of course 

 I should be slow to admit that all phenomenal abundance of any 

 species of coleoptera in any particular locality is due to any sort of 

 migration. I have seen Phylopertha Iwrticola swarming in incalculable 

 myriads for miles along the shores of Cardigan Bay, but I believe that 

 every individual had been bred on the spot, and that the reason for 

 their extraordinary abundance was merely a coincidence of favourable 

 circumstances extending over, perhaps, more than one season, in fact, 

 I should only be willing to resort to any immigration theory to explain 

 any amount of abundance above the normal, where I was persuaded 

 that the species could not have been bred in the locality where the 

 imago form was in such abundance." 



The interesting observations made by Tomlin and Sopp, referred to 

 above, are detailed at length Knt. Record, xiii., pp. 312-345. 



Harding notes {Ent. Wk. IntclL, iv., p. 125) that, in June, 1858, 

 the weather being very hot, large numbers of coleoptera from the 

 sandhills at Deal, took flight to sea. He suggests that this was due to 

 the great heat of the sand, but gives no further details of his observa- 

 tions which, properly followed up, might have meant so much. 

 Coleoptera were evidently very abundant that year at Deal, for, writing 

 a little later, the same observer notes that on July IGth, 1858, the 

 Deal sandhills were swarming with a little Staph, that filled the eyes 

 and mouth of the collector. 



Brown records {Ball. U.S. Dcjit. Atpicidtnre, no. 18, n.s., p. 100) the 

 migration of JJisminr/ta (luiiufucrittata, known as the " western willow 

 flea-beetle," in Arizona, and, later, states {luc. cit., no. 30, n.s., p. 97) 

 that the beetles were again observed migrating, this time coming down 

 the Gila river and going in the direction of the Colorado. They were 

 seen, on November 3rd and 4th, 1899, moving in a belt, apparently 

 not more than 100 yards wide, and continued doing so during the two 



