APPENDIX: NO. XX. 23 
».6.e 
Mierations or Insects. 
[‘ Zoologist,’ v. (1847) pp. 1899, 1900. ] 
Lest by any chance it should have escaped your notice I enclose 
an extract’ from the ‘Times’ of August 16th, 1847, which gives 
a very interesting account of a huge swarm of Lady-birds, which 
were actually seen coming in the direction of the French or Belgian 
coast some hours before they arrived on our shores. Migrations, in 
large bodies, of Aphides, Flies, Locusts, and other insects, are 
common, but this peculiarly well-observed and enormous emigration 
of Coccinellide from the Continent is well worthy of note. The 
believers in Mr. Smee’s theory of the cause of the potato disease may 
congratulate the country on this arrival of destroyers of the destroyer. 
The Aphides being a race endowed with such very migratory instincts, 
we are not surprised to find that their parasites are obliged to shift 
their quarters also. If it should appear that the hops in Kent 
are peculiarly infested with blight next year, how wonderful would 
this friendly arrival from a distant land seem to be! Migratory 
flights of Butterflies, and of various species, have often been observed. 
Swarms of white Butterflies have been actually seen to arrive at 
Dover. Can we doubt that the Sphinx convolvuli, as well as the 
Locusts of last year, the Colias Hyale of two or three years before, 
the Vanessa Antiopa of some score of years since, and also the 
occasional specimens of V. Antiopa, of Pontia Daplidice, of Argynnis 
Lathonia, and perhaps even of Papilio Podalirius, are arrivals from 
the Continent ? Might we not even extend this to Colias Edusa, and 
consider it a more regular immigrant? Nay the common Cynthia 
cardui is a notoriously migratory Butterfly, not even fearing to 
cross the snows of the highest Alps. Now, are these Butterflies of 
periodical appearance on the Continent? I believe not. The 
freshness of the specimens is a common argument against their 
having come from a distance, and it seems a good one, though an 
insect perpetually in the air is less likely to be damaged than one 
blown about amongst leaves and flowers. I do not mean though that 
in every instance the specimens themselves have come from abroad ; 
perhaps their parents were the original settlers. Colias Hyale 
decreased in numbers for two or three years before it disappeared ; 
so of Papilio Machaon, of which I turned out great quantities in 
Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire : a few specimens were seen in two 
1 [The extract was reprinted in ‘The Zoologist,’ immediately above Mr. Wolley’s 
remarks; but it would be out of place to reproduce it here, though it is very 
interesting and far better written than most things of the kind which figure iu 
newspapers. The swarm or flight is described as having the appearance of a 
cloud a few miles long extending over the sea from the direction of Calais and 
Ostend to Ramsgate and Margate, which towns it reached about sunset. It must 
have consisted of millions upon millions of insects, and affected the coast of 
England from Southend to Brighton.—Eb. | 
