PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. Ixxxv. 



times it looked as if a swarm of bees was flying about above the 

 part where they were congregated, their flight being not unlike 

 that of bees, but rather slower. They finally flew off, rising to 

 a considerable height in the air, all in an easterly direction 

 towards the Weymouth Backwater, about ij mile distant, but 

 whether that was their destination (it is brackish water) or not it 

 is impossible to say. Many of them were not successful in their 

 first start, but landed a few inches off in the mud, whence they 

 found it difficult to rise, and mostly crawled back to the pond to 

 make a fresh attempt. They could, however, rise from the 

 ground just as well as the water, but were incommoded by the 

 soft mud. The number that left the pond must have been very 

 large, for the exodus lasted for certainly two hours, and probably 

 longer; it had quite ceased by 2.30 p.m., and I estimated the 

 rate of departure as being often as many as from one to two 

 hundred in a minute when the sun shone brightly. Some 

 thousands must have left the pond altogether, far more than I 

 should have imagined it contained. A great many fell a prey to 

 the starlings which were hawking about in an unusual manner in 

 considerable numbers at a little distance in the line of flight of 

 the insects, and some were eaten by fowls on the shore. More 

 would have been destroyed in this way but that the fowls sank 

 in the mud and did not dare to go quite close to the edge. A 

 few (perhaps twenty or thirty) large water beetles (Acilius 

 Sulcatus, Linn.), came to the edge of the water and sat on 

 sticks, &c., which projected above its surface, and some crawled 

 up the mud, but we only saw four actually fly away, so that the 

 migratory impulse did not seem to be so strong upon them as on 

 the boatmen. I did not see any other insects migrating unless 

 it were one or two small beetles, but I am not sure about 

 these. 





Nothing unusual appeared to be going on in the adjacent 

 ond to the west, which is generally well populated and also a 

 permanent pond. There was hardly any wind, none at all 

 being perceptible on the pond, but what there was came from 



