293 THE entomologist's record. 



coast.' July 31st, at 10.14 a.m., ' A cloud of mosquitoes pitched in 

 this neighbourhood, similar to those seen in India ; most of them were 

 carried off at noon by a light breeze.' Mr. Chas. Williams of the 

 Hanois lighthouse, Guernsey, says, under date of July 10th, ' A great 

 quantity of large winged ants passing; a great many settled on the 

 rocks and about the lighthouse. I have only once seen them before 

 like this, viz., when I was stationed at the South Bishop Rock, off the 

 coast of Wales.' " 



Fabre, in his Souvenirs Entomolorfiques, records (Engl. TransL, 

 pp. 185-186) that, whilst ascending Mont Ventoux, at an altitude of 

 6000ft., he discovered under a big stone several hundreds of Atinnophila 

 hirsuta, a species that he had previously found isolated on banks along 

 roads in the plain. He notes (pp. 193 et seq.) that they were almost 

 as compact as a swarm of bees, that, as soon as the stone was lifted, 

 the insects began to move about but without any attempt to take 

 wing. He removed whole handfuls but not one seemed inclined to 

 leave the heap ; common interests appeared to unite them mdissolubly, 

 not one would go unless all went. An examination of the stone, the 

 soil around, etc., gave no explanation of the strange assemblage. He 

 discusses his observation at length. He points out that Ammophila 

 hirsuta hybernates in the imaginal stage. He puts aside as improb- 

 able that they had taken up their winter-quarters in this unpropitious 

 spot in x^ugust, and concludes that it was probably a temporary halt 

 of the swarm which Avas migrating from the cold land of the Drome to 

 descend into the Avarm plains of the olive, and which, having to cross the 

 deep wide valley of the Toulourenc, and surprised by the rain, had halted 

 on the mountain top. There is no positive evidence forthcoming on 

 the point, but Fabre concludes that A. hirsuta has to migrate to escape 

 the winter cold. 



A South American wasp, Polistes bipustulatus, was taken at Ince, 

 near Liverpool, during an excursion of the Liverpool Nat. Field 

 Club, in the summer of 1875; the same species had been taken in the 

 London Docks by Douglas, in 1868, whilst in Ent. Ann., 1868, p. 87, 

 and 1869, p. 68, the same Brazilian species is recorded as being taken 

 at Penzance in 1866 and 1867, undoubted importations. 



The migration of the social insects — Hymenoptera and Termites 

 — is closely connected, however, with the necessity of their finding 

 a new home, and, although the details of their "swarming," as 

 their emigrations are called, are different, the result is somewhat 

 the same. Ants and bees are well-known for their swarming habits, 

 but, whereas the winged males and females of the former rise into the 

 air in great numbers for the purpose of a nuptial flight and copulate 

 on the wing, the swarm of the honey-bee, Apis melUjica, is accom- 

 panied by the already fertilised queen, and the phenomenon is usually 

 stated to be due, in confinement, to the want of room in the hive. Layard, 

 however, noticed at the meeting of the Ent. Soc. of London, May 7th, 

 1866 {Ent. Mo. Mag., iii., p. 24) that, although it was generally 

 supposed that the swarming of bees was caused by insufficient 

 room in the hives, yet, in South Africa, where large numbers of 

 wild bees, allied to the honey-bee, live in large caverns (the entrance to 

 which they block up with a curtain of propolis), they invariably swarm, 

 though there could scarcely be any want of space, but Tegetmeier said 

 that, in England, it had been found possible to prevent the swarming 

 of A. mellifica by adding to the size of the hive before the usual period 



