22 NATURAL History NOTES. 
fewer than 26 larvee were found in different parts along the Gallo- 
way coast. None were found in Dumfriesshire, but an odd 
straggler or so were got about Kirkgunzeon and Corsock. Most 
of them, however, were got about Colvend and Kirkbean. He 
thought it likely that the larve might have originated from eggs 
on the Ti tree—a tree which grows very luxuriously at Colvend, 
and is known to be a favourite food of the larve. Not a single 
one had reached the imago stage. The eggs and larve were not 
in a natural environment here at all, and the tendency was for 
these colonists to die out. Two years later—in 1901—some 
larvee were got, but from that time till now none had been seen. 
One moth was recorded from Thornhill last June, and it was just 
likely that there might have been a small party of immigrants, one 
of which had deposited eggs there. In 1898, one afternoon in 
going home, when it was still bright daylight, he had the good 
fortune to see one of these immense insects crawling up the wall of 
one of the houses in Laurieknowe. He climbed after it up a 
drop pipe, getting on to one of the windows at the risk of 
being taken for a burglar, and secured it. A show had 
passed by shortly before, and a boy’s comment on his proceeding 
was that he was “after yin o’ the wild beasts’’ that had 
escaped. He next exhibited an insect belonging to the same 
division as the Death’s Head Moth, namely, the Convolvulus 
Hawk Moth. This insect never seemed to become quite estab- 
lished, although in recent years it had been much more in evidence 
than it used to be when he first became acquainted with it. 
These Hawk Moths, as they were called, had very strong powers 
of flight, and there was no reason whatever why they should not 
emulate the birds in their powers of getting across the country by 
the overhead route, because they could fly as well as any bird, 
and no doubt in the higher reaches they could get along as easily. 
A number of years ago he got one of these moths from Sir George 
Walker of Crawfordton, who took it from the sails of a yacht on 
which he was travelling between Malta and Sicily. Another one 
he had was got off the west coast of Ireland in an almost similar 
way, having been taken from the sails of a fishing boat. Another 
was taken from the sails of a boat sailing between the Isle of Man 
and Whitehaven. These facts showed that the Hawk Moth was 
accustomed to taking long flights at sea. He added that our area 
had the honour of producing the only known instance in Scotland 
