THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 831 



my letter of last June once more for his consideration, and I 

 can assure him that the flights of butterflies I have seen at 

 Colombo in November and December — I have seen many 

 of them — liave invariably been travelling against the wind. I 

 can give him one particular instance, with the date. On 

 Advent Sunday, December 3, 1865, when the people w'ere 

 coming out of the Galle Face Church at about half-past 

 twelve, the Galle Face was almost overshadowed by a great 

 cloud of yellow and white butterflies ; they were coming in 

 thousands up the Colpetty Road, and flying in the direction 

 of the fort. Dr. Moss should know that the N.E. monsoon 

 sets in early in November, and that it blows hard at Colombo 

 in December; against this wind the butterflies were fighting 

 their way, and making fair but unsteady progress. During 

 my visit to Ceylon I was frequently staying at the Galle Face 

 Hotel, sometimes for weeks together, and I generally had 

 one of the rooms close to the beach. From that position I 

 have repeatedly seen scores of Papilio Hector and many 

 P. Darsius, in company with numbers of the smaller yellow 

 and while species, struggling successfully to make head 

 against the 'long-shore' wind, many of them keeping outside 

 of the belt of cocoa-nut trees, and flying low and close to the 

 beach. I have mentioned having seen during three seasons 

 flights of P. Hector many miles from land, and flying towards 

 the Ceylon coast from the direction of India. Dr. Moss says 

 the large varieties of butterflies are never seen migrating, but 

 are what he would call local, passing their lives where they 

 are born. Does he consider P. Hector a large variety or a 

 small one? I am quite content to believe Dr. Moss's state- 

 ment that butterflies never fly against the wind when they get 

 among the monsoon gusts on his estate on the hills in the 

 centre of the island ; they seem to lose their heads there, and 

 go wherever the wind drives them, but that is no reason why 

 they should not move with some definite purpose in the 

 neighbourhood of the coast; and the fact that I have always 

 seen them there flying head to wind, when the wind blows in 

 nearly the same direction for n)onths at a time, seems to 

 imply some meaning in these migrations. Let me suggest to 

 Dr. Moss that he should make inquiries of some of his 

 Coloujbo friends, or persuade some of his planter neighboms, 

 when they are staying at the Galle Face Hotel, to make some 



