THE KOMANCE OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



But in these cases the land was not beyond the 

 range of moderate flight. What shall we say to 

 jaunts of five hundred or a thousand miles per- 

 formed by these filmy- winged and delicate crea- 

 tures? Mr. Davis has recorded* that a large 

 dragon-fly, of the genus JEshna, flew on board the 

 ship in which he was sailing, on the 11th of 

 December, 1837, when out at sea, the nearest land 

 being the coast of Africa, which was distant five 

 hundred miles. 



The late Mr. Newport, in his Presidential Ad- 

 dress to the Entomological Society of London, 

 for the year 1845, thus alluded to two other in- 

 stances of the same interesting phenomenon: — 

 "Mr. Saunders exhibited, at our December meet- 

 ing, a specimen of jEshna, that was taken at sea 

 by our corresponding member, Mr. Stephenson, in 

 his voyage from this country to New Zealand, 

 last year. This insect is a recognised African spe- 

 cies, and was captured on the Atlantic, more than 

 six hundred miles in a direct line from land. In 

 all probability it had been driven across the ocean 

 by the trade winds, which blow continuously at 

 that season of the year in a direction oblique to 

 the course of the ship that was conveying Mr, 

 Stephenson outwards. The other instance that 

 has Just come to my knowledge is mentioned in a 

 letter from Mr. Dyson to Mr. Cuming. Mr. Dyson 

 states, that while at sea, in October last, when 

 about six hundred miles from the Cape de Verd 

 Islands, and twelve hundred from Gruadaloupe, he 

 observed a large butterfly, apparently of the genus 

 Morpho, (?)f flying round the ship, but he could 



* Entom. Mag., v.p. 251. 



+ If the butterfly was indeed a Morpho,— and Mr. Dyson, who 

 was an experienced lepidopterist, could scarcely have been de- 

 ceived about so remarkable a butterfly,— it could have come 

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