MIGRATIONS OP INSECf S. ^7^ 



everywhere seen darting", floating alive on the surface 

 of the water. While passing the river, these had 

 probably been precipitated into it, either by the wind 

 or by a heavy shower which had just fallen : and 

 M. liuber, after a similar event, observed the earth 

 strewed with females that had lost their wings, all of 

 which could not form colonies. 



*' Captain Haverfield, R. N., gave me an account 

 of an extraordinary appearance of ants observed by 

 him in the Medway, in the autumn of 1814, which 

 is confirmed by the following letter, addressed by 

 the surgeon of the Clorinde, now Dr. Bromley, to 

 Mr MacLeay : ' In September, 1814, bein^^ on the 

 deck of the hulk to the Clorinde, my attention was 

 drawn to the water by the first-heutenant (Haver- 

 field) observing there was something black floating 

 down with the tide. On looking with a glass, I dis- 

 covered they were insects. The boat was sent, and 

 brought a bucket full of them on board ; they proved 

 to be a large species of ant, and extended from the 

 upper part of Salt-pan Reach out towards the Great 

 Nore, a distance of five or six miles. The column 

 appeared to be in breadth eight or ten feet, and in 

 height about six inches, which I suppose must have 

 been from their resting one upon another.' These 

 ants were winged — whence this immense column 

 came was not ascertained. From the numbers here 

 agglomerated, one would think that all the ant-hills 

 of Kent and Surrey could scarcely have furnished a 

 sufficient number of males and females to form it. 



" When Colonel Sir Augustus Frazer, of the 

 horse-artillery, was surveying, on the 6th of October, 

 1813, the scene of the battle of the Pyrenees, from 

 the summit of the mountain called Pena de Aya, or 

 Les Quartres Couronnes, he and his friends were 

 enveloped by a swarm of ants, so numerous as en- 



