Ill 



were saluted by a copious sliower of these strong-winged insects, which had crowded 

 on every part of the rooms and verandah, flying in legions in their faces with a 

 whirring noise, and at the same lime covering them with a quantity of dust or raoth- 

 feathers. During the first few days of the plague, some persons had to call in the 

 assistance of their neighbours to help to clear away the hosts of these insects that had 

 congregated in their dwellings. They filled the church at Kiaraa, and for a time 

 prevented the performance of divine service ; and how they behaved in the church at 

 St. Leonards, on the north shore of Port Jackson, has been described by the Rev. W. 

 B, Clarke. It is difficult to form an opinion whence the moths came: on the doors 

 and windows being left open, the rooms were soon filled with multitudes, and what 

 with the "dust-feathers'* and a white fluid ejected by them, they stained and injured 

 the curtains and coverings of the furniture. About dusk they might be observed flying 

 high and always with great rapidity, and then spreading about would alight on the 

 flowers, always selecting the sweetest, and on these they might be seen in crowds 

 sucking the blossoms, and so busily engaged as to be readily captured. Although 

 generally seeu about dusk, yet I observed a few daj's since a number of them 

 crowding on the flowers of the orange and lemon trees early in the afternoon, and they 

 rose in multitudes when disturbed. All I have examined are males, and although 

 caught in various localities not a single fertile female has yet been discovered. It has 

 been stated that a similar visitation took place in the vicinity of Sydney in 1855, but 

 I do not recollect their swarming so generally, or to so great an extent or in such 

 legions, as on the present occasion. In the ' Newcastle Chronicle' it is mentioned that 

 Captain Twiss, of the brigantine ' Express,' which arrived in port on the 9lh of 

 October, reports that 'on the 7lh of October, being 300 miles away from the coast of 

 New South Wales, he observed a great number of moths in the sea; on the 8th, being 

 moderately calm, the sea was literally covered with moths.' Captain Twiss was of 

 opinion that they had been blown from the shore, but from observations on land they 

 appeared to come from the sea in the teeth of a westerly gale." 



The following is the account given by the Rev. W. B. Clarke, dated " St. Leonards, 

 10th October, 1867,'' and referred to in Dr. Bennett's letter: — 



" On the 22nd of December, 1851, 1 camped on a thick bed of snow, just under the 

 summit of the Mount Kosciusco range in the Australian Alps, at a height of between 

 six and seven thousand feet, or more than a mile and a quarter above the sea. The 

 only fuel we could obtain was from the belt of old withered dwarf gum scrub, that 

 appears just at the snow line; our fire, therefore, was very small. About sundown an 

 immense flight of moths came down from the granite peaks and nearly extinguished 

 the fire. My attention being attracted to them by this circumstance, and my memory 

 supplying the fact, that Dr. Bennett had, years before, described the moths that he 

 saw on the Bugong Mountain, on the Upper Tumut River, I secured a specimen, 

 which I find by comparison to be identical in species with the Agrotis that is now 

 infesting this vicinity. It is for the sake of identification that I allude to the year 

 1851. On the 7th of October, 1855, St. Thomas' Church (North Shore) was visited by 

 a great flight, which much disturbed the congregation on that day and the following 

 Sunday, 14th October. The invaders were got rid of with great difficulty, and at some 

 cost to the parish, on account of the injury done to the church furniture. On the 7th 

 and 14th of October, 1866 (just eleven years afterwards) a similar visitation took place, 



