10 impehiect societies of insects. 



Sussex coasts, to the no small alarm of the supersti- 

 tious, who thought them forerunners of some direful 

 evil. Tiieselast probably emigrated with the Aphides 

 from the hop-grounds. Whether the latter and their 

 devourers cross the sea has not been ascertained ; 

 that the Coccinellae attempt it is evident from their 

 alighting- upon ships at sea, as I have witnessed myself. 

 — This appears clearly to have been the case with an- 

 other emigrating insect, the saw-fly {Tetjthredo) of the 

 turnip (which, though so mischievous, appears never 

 to have been described ; it is nearly related to T. Cen- 

 iifolice, Panz.)''. It is the general opinion in Norfolk, 

 Mr. Marshall informs us**, that these insects come from 

 over sea. A farmer declared he saw them arrive in 

 clouds so as to darken the air; the fishermen asserted 

 that they had repeatedly seen flights of them pass over 

 their heads when they were at a distance from land ; 

 and on the beach and clift's they were in such quanti- 

 ties, that they might have been taken up by shovels- 

 full. Three miles in-land they were described as re- 

 sembling swarms of bees. This was in August 1782. 

 Unentomological observers, such as farmers and fisher- 

 men, might easily mistake one kind of insect for another ; 

 but supposing them correct, the swarms in question 

 might perhaps have passed from Lincolnshire to Nor- 

 folk. — Meinecken tells us, that he once saw in a village 

 in Anhalt, on a clear day, about four in the afternoon, 

 such a cloud of dragon-flies (LibellulcEy L.) as almost 

 concealed the sun, and not a little alarmed the villag;ers, 

 Vnder the idea that they were locusts*^; and several iu- 



» Fn. Germ. Init. xlix. 18. " PIMos, Trans. Ixxiii. 217. 



f Naturforsc/i. \i. 110, 



