152 THK kntomolo(jiht's kk<;okii. 



seeking higher ground. In the broader column I saw insects after 

 settling on the sandhills, again take wing and join the main body 

 moving inland, but none of the insects composing this swarm seemed 

 to continue their flight, many, indeed, appearing content to remain on 

 their backs as they fell. lender these circumstances I should have 

 expected on my return to find more insects on the ground instead of 

 less, and I think they must have burrowed in the sand. I, however, 

 only saw one doing so, nor did the scraping away of sand in several 

 places serve to disclose more than one other. As A. iu(iidnati<>i has 

 been common in the neighbourhood this spring, it might be supposed 

 that the insects had flown out from this coast earlier in the day, but 

 the overcast sky, and the direction and steady increase in force, caused 

 by the incoming tide, of the prevailing cold wind during the morning, 

 would be opposed to that theory. Despite the parallel direction of their 

 flight I am of opinion that there was a considerable difterence in the 

 distance which had been covered by the two columns. In the first and 

 narrower one the insects appeared fatigued, in the second they were 

 comparatively fresh. Whence came then these doughty immigrants ? 

 The direction of their flight would point to the Isle of Man as their 

 starting place ; the direction of the wind would favour the Wirral or 

 north Welsh coast. Dr. J. Harold Bailey writes me he has not so far 

 observed the species in the island, and suggests they may have hailed 

 from the north of Ireland. Should any have so crossed it would 

 probably be the insects composing the narrower column as their flight 

 from so great a distance, and across the wind, would account for their 

 exhausted condition. The second swarm may have come from the 

 dunes of Cheshire or north Wales, whence, having flown out to sea, 

 with the wind earlier in the d<iy, they would make for the nearest land 

 towards sunset, or, should the insects of both columns have followed 

 the same general course, it is possible that the larger may have come 

 from the Wirral, barely fifteen miles to the south-south-west, and the 

 smaller from some more remote point westward along the Welsh coast. 

 Of course it is well-known that Aphodins nmtatiiinatnx., Fab. {Col. 

 Urit. /.s., vol. iv., p. 82 : Naturalist's Joiirit., January, 1902, p. 9), A. 

 siiy(li(bis, Herbst {Eat. Record, viii., pp. 143-144), and other Aphodii 

 occasionally swarm in countless numbers, but to me, the most interest- 

 ing feature in the present instance is that, though there is strong 

 presumptive evidence of the two swarms having started from separate 

 localities, they should practically converge on one point, for less than 

 half-a-mile separated the two zones of shore traversed by the insects 

 in their journey landwards. The only recorded flight of A. iiuiiiinatnn 

 which I have been able to discover, is that mentioned by Schiifter 

 (Hntow. Xcirs, viii., p. 173) as occurring in Delaware county towards 

 the end of March, 1897, and referred to by Mr. Tutt in his Migration 

 and Dispersal of Insects (1902, chap, vi., p. 101). This swarm was 

 observed shortly before sunset, the insects flying from east to west 

 and across the wind. — E. J. B. Sopp, F.K.Met.S.. F.E.S., Birkdale. 

 April 2Qth, 190i. _ 



i3\0TES ON LIFE-HISTORIES, LARY^, &c. 



Important i,ai;vai. stkih'tirk in Cof-koi'Mokids. -1 wish to call the 

 attention of niicro-lepidopfcerists to the following facts : — In certain 

 species of the genus < 'dleop/inra [fitscedinella, lieinerohiella, liniosipennclla, 



