DISTRIBUTE INSECT VARIETY. 315 



or fliy^ and portions of the year vary ; and such evoke invariably 

 the prognostications of insect prodigies, and cause marvellous 

 tales to become current among entomological coteries. A wet 

 season, they will tell you, has a tendency to delay and decrease 

 the number of annual broods, to multiply certain caterpillars, and 

 to produce sports in our fauna. The year 1879, a golden number 

 of the Rocky Mountain Locust, proved proverbially disastrous 

 and rainy in Europe ; that brought out a many-pictured plethora 

 of Drinker Moths, Gammas, and Magpie Moths all over the 

 country, while a majority of insects scarcely put in an appear- 

 ance. It also sent us the Painted Lady or Thistle Butterfly, with 

 other of the African insect population, winging northward on the 

 early sirocco, and pushed a pugnacious horde of locusts into the 

 southern realms of the Czar. A cold and late spring in 1873 

 brought on a warm autumn that disseminated Camberwell 

 Beauties and Queen of Spain Fritillaries out over the land, and 

 the scarce pink-spotted moth, Beiojoea pulchella, of Oriental 

 affinities, just previously turned up in the September fallows. 

 And so farther back again, 1860 was a year peculiarly devoid of 

 summer weather, and then our rare Hawk Moths migrated freely 

 to this island during the spring and autumn months, while irre- 

 gularities in the appearance of insects were everywhere the subject 

 of comment. 



As far as would appear, a warm season dawns on us with like 

 potents as the colder cycle; insects, however, are then more plentiful, 

 and the species it fosters are generally different. Such a year was 

 1857, reported by the Registrar-General as quite unprecedented for 

 brilliant weather and heat. The two Clouded Yellow Butterflies 

 became plentiful on the coasts of Sussex and Kent, the commoner 

 sort extending to the south-west corner of Scotland. Purple Em- 

 perors and Convolvulus Hawks were taken freely in this country. 

 Another such year was 1868, miprecedented for the intensity and 

 duration of its summer heat. And then Dr. Knaggs writes in the 

 Entomologists' Annual, "The good old butterfly days appear to 

 be returning ■'"' — Bath Whites, Camberwell Beauties, and Queens 

 of Spain having put in a much stronger appearance than 

 usual, while as for Pale Clouded Yellows, I suppose they have 

 been never more abundant. The Convolvulus Hawk was also 

 unusually abundant, and so were other rare Hawk Moths. 



