Ixxxiv. PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 



scarabs has been investigated, showing five genera of beetles, 

 and our hon. member, Mr. R. Lydekker, F.R.S., has also 

 brought natural history to bear on archaeology by identifying 

 the animals in Egyptian sculptures and paintings. Interesting 

 excavations continue to be carried on in Crete, Denmark, 

 Glastonbury, and elsewhere, and are about to be commenced at 

 Herculaneum. 



THE MIGRATION OF INSECTS. HEMIPTERA. 



An incident which I had the good fortune to witness has 

 suggested to me that I should say a few words about the habit 

 of insects of occasionally moving in large numbers, as if actuated 

 by a common impulse which is generally termed migration ; but 

 perhaps this word, in its usual sense, hardly covers all the 

 observed phenomena of this nature. I describe the incident 

 at some length, as, though there are many records of similar 

 cases in other species of insects, it is rarely that the whole 

 movement comes under observation, generally only the fact that 

 a swarm of the insects was seen ; and even here I regret to say 

 that the migration could not be followed out to its ending. On 

 September 2 6th, 1904, Mrs. Richardson was standing by a small 

 pond in one of our fields at about 1 1 a.m., when she noticed 

 that there was something unusual going on amongst its 

 inhabitants, and called me to see it. The pond is a shallow 

 one, never dry, like many of these field ponds, about seven or 

 eight yards in diameter, and there is a similar slightly larger one 

 on the other side of the hedge. It is a good deal shaded by 

 trees, and the approach to it is soft mud. Numbers of water- 

 boatmen (Corixa Geoffroyi, Leach), were coming up out of the 

 water to the edge of the pond, parts of the shore being often 

 lined with a rank two or three deep. They mostly remained for 

 a short time in the water, on the surface, within an inch or two 

 of the shore, and as soon as the sun came out, which it did at 

 frequent intervals, they began to fly away. They generally took 

 one or two turns in the air before they finally departed, and at 



