152 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



and beacons placed to mark out the different channels in the 

 deeps, though I never noticed them attempt to do so; but on 

 Thursday last, again observing several, I watched them 

 minutely, when one of them fell in the sea, about five miles 

 from land; and, to my surprise, as the wave arose upon 

 which it had alighted, the little creature mounted with it, and 

 flew away again uninjured, and apparently refreshed by its 

 resting there. I suppose others have noticed this ; but, if not 

 generally known, I send the information for naturalists. — 

 C. Pocklington ; West SJdrheck, Boston. 



[The interesting facts mentioned by our correspondent are 

 not new to us ; the following passage from Mr. Newman's 

 'Illustrated Natural History of British Butterflies' seems to 

 meet the case exactly. It not only corroborates, but ampli- 

 fies, our correspondent's statements : — " It was a still, hot 

 day, with scarcely a breath of air, and now and then the 

 common Brassicae and Rapte (these are the common cabbage 

 butterflies) would lazily fly in. The flood-tide set in about 

 3 p.m. with a gentle breeze, and then came a host of the 

 above-named butterflies, with a few of Napi. There must 

 have been hundreds arrived within a very short space of 

 time ; but what surprised my friend and me was their 

 alighting or settling on the sea with expanded wings, and the 

 ease with which they rose again. We saw the same butterfly 

 settle and rise again as many as four or five times within a 

 distance of less than a hundred yards, and with apparently 

 as much ease as on land. They all came direct in from the 

 sea, from a south-westerly direction, and seemed to aim for 

 the entrance of the harbour between the piers, though there 

 were plenty of them came on shore on each side of the piers. 

 The shore was covered with a coarse sort of rye grass, on 

 which they were resting when we returned home ; and on 

 walking through the tall grass they rose in myriads." This 

 was at Brighton. — Editor of the ' Field.'' \ 



Works 0)1 Hy}nenoptera. — In answer to W. D. Koebuck : 

 — In the Hymenoptera we have no satisfactory work on the 

 Ichneumons on Tenthredinina ; Mr. Smith's Museum Cata- 

 logue of the 'Bees of Great Britain' is the best on bees. 

 Mr. Shuckard's ' Essay on Indigenous Fossorial Hymenop- 

 tera' and Mr. Smith's Museum Catalogue of British Fossorial 

 Hymenoptera' are both of them excellent. 



