COLEOPTERA. 75 



carried up mountains by currents of air. What is the explanation of 

 the significance of the habit ? Following on Piper's note, Snyder 

 relates {loe. eit., p. 99) that he made a similar observation on the 

 summit of a mountain in Utah, at an elevation of 9000 feet. On June 

 30th, 1893, about noon, while sitting down to put some of his captures 

 in papers, hundreds of a species of CorcincUa passed him going with 

 the wind ; it was a new experience, and never before or since has the 

 insect been observed in such numbers {h/nt. Neics, v., p. 168). Snyder 

 goes on to say (/or. rit., viii., p. 99) that he does not know what 

 species it was, but that the insects were in such great numbers, that 

 the impression made, of what seemed so remarkable a flight, will not 

 soon be effaced. He than adds : " A similar flight on the part of 

 (Jantharis nuttallil would seem to prove that other insects do move in 



the same manner A reasonable inference would seem 



that the insects were in search of food, but were controlled by the 

 wind and sometimes carried to destruction." Cook relates {Knt. Xeirs, 

 ix., p. 117) that in Los Angeles Co., California, he has often seen the 

 two species of ladybirds — Me(fUla rittiijera and Hippodainia a>iibi;/iia — 

 so clusteretl that they could be gathered by the pint, and believes they 

 cluster for protection from the cold. The same observer notes the 

 swarming of Serica uiLcta, which does considerable damage to orchards. 

 The massing of the Coccinellids still awaits an explanation, and 

 the details relating to the phenomenon at present available, neither 

 answer the question whence the insects come nor whither they go. 

 Nor are other observations referred to by the observers themselves, as 

 undoubted dispersal movements, always so clearly detailed as to leave 

 us with any definite ideas on the subject. Thus we find [Xatur. Verh. 

 Ilnllawl Maatsrh. Wetcns. Haarh'ni., ii., 1842, p. 298) that "the 

 (.'antharid, Li/tta resicatoria, also furnished us, in 1838, with an 

 illustration of really prodigious numbers of an insect, which in its 

 passage, offered no data by which the movement was fixed or regulated "; 

 and again {lor. cit., p. 300) : " These occasional passages recall those 

 which Aj>ion vcrnalc very often makes, moving from place to place in 

 great numbers, and doing great damage by their voracity. In 

 Montpellier, they passed in such numbers that one could collect them 

 in large handfuls at once, the movement commencing with the cholera 

 outbreak in May and June, 1832." More definite is the statement {Inc. 

 cit.) that Atcuclius sacer and A. laticollis, which are sometimes very 

 common on the shores of France, come from Spain or Africa, the 

 waves often throwing up specimens that have fallen into the sea and 

 been drowned whilst crossing. Schiifier notes {Knt. Xcns, viii., p. 173) 

 the occurrence of a swarm of Aplmdins iiujuinntua in Delaware county, 

 towards the end of March, 1897, the swarm was observed shortly 

 before sunset, and they were flying from east to west across his path 

 and across the wind ; the swarm was estimated at fully a quarter of a 

 mile wide. One suspects that this again was hardly a real dispersal 

 movement, some British members of the genus, t'.//., A. sonliilns, being 

 occasionally very abundant and collecting in swarms, but certainly not 

 for the purpose of migration, en masse (see Knt. lleconL, viii., pp. 1-43-4). 



COLEOPTERA. 



CoLEOPTKRA IN SuRREY. — Early in July last I spent a fortnight at 



