MIGRATION AND DISPERSAL ON INSECTS : OOLEOPTERA. 73 



the trees have disappeared under the demand for timber and firewood 

 of such towns as Cuenca. Donkeys carrying loads of firewood pro- 

 ceeding to the town from the still-existing forest are constantly met 

 on the roads up the Huecar and Jucar valleys. We did not see any- 

 where here any attempts at re-afforestation, but the School of Forestry 

 at the Escorial shows that the subject is being energetically attended 

 to, but no doubt the area affected is too large to be dealt with very 

 rapidly. 



At Cuenca we were introduced to Seilor Don Juan Jimenez 

 Cano, who accompanied us on several of our excursions there, espe- 

 cially to Palomera and the caves, a short way above that nicely- 

 situated village, and afterwards went with us to Tragacete. We not 

 only found his society pleasant, but we got from time to time much 

 information of a general character, as well as that relating to the local 

 geography and natural history. He studies Orthoptera and Coleoptera, 

 but has too many other studies to devote any large amount of time to 

 them. 



If it be not poaching on Mr. Champion's preserves, I may say I 

 was much interested from several points of view in hearing that a 

 local chemist told him that last year he collected 3000 specimens of 

 the Longicorn genus Ikn-cadion, which he forwarded to Germany. 

 These were over at the time of our visit, and we only saw three or 

 four of them. 



{To be continued.) 



Migration and Dispersal of Insects: Coleoptera. 



By J. W. TUTT, F.E.S. 



Fabre notes {Imect Life, transl. pp. 202 et seij.) what he 

 considers may have been two cases of migration in Coccimila 

 ai'ptempunctatn. In one, the chapel on Mont Ventoux was 

 covered with such myriads of this species, that it looked at 

 a few paces off like an object made of coral beads, and adds : 

 "Certainly it was not food which had attracted these eaters of Aphid ae 

 to the top of Mont Yentoux, some 6000 feet high." Another time 

 in June he observed, on the tableland of St. Amand, at a height of 7H4 

 metres, a similar, but less numerous, gathering of the same species. 

 He writes : " At the most projecting part of the tableland, on the 

 edge of an escarpment of perpendicular rocks, rises a cross with a 

 pedestal of hewn stone. On every side of this pedestal, and on the 

 rocks serving as its base, this beetle was gathered in legions. They 

 were mostly quite still, but wherever the sunbeams struck there was 

 a continuous exchange of place between the newcomers who wanted to 

 find room, and those resting, who took wing only to return after a 

 short flight. Neither here, any more than on the top of Alont 

 Ventoux, was there anything to explain the cause of these strange 

 assemblages on arid spots without Apliitlar, and no ways attractive to 

 Coccinellidae, nothing could suggest the secret of these populous 

 gatherings upon masonry standing at so great an elevation. Have we 

 here two examples of insect migration ? Were these rendezvous, 

 whence the cloud of ladybirds was to seek some district richer i)i food? 

 It may be so, but it is very extraordinary. Why these gatherings at 

 such heights ? Why this liking for blocks of masonry ? " 



How much has this peculiar massing of ladybirds on the summits 



