NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 185 



paper.* In 1899 Kriiger rediscussed these species,! including 

 also some described by Zehntner in 1897. These papers are not 

 reported by the ' Zoological Record,' or (apparently) by the 

 'Bericht der Entomologie,' and the species were not included by 

 Uzel in his monograph. 



NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 



Note on the Dispersal of Butterflies. — I was interested, when 

 on the north-west coast of Madagascar, to have presented to me on 

 the same day — May 26th, 1907 — an instance both of the natural and 

 what I may call the artificial means by which butterflies are dispersed. 

 Kegarding the latter, when the ship was loading some highly odorife- 

 rous hides in Majunga harbour, about six specimens of Crenis mada- 

 gascariensis, Boisd. persisted in flying about the ship, regardless of the 

 crowd of passengers, the noise of winches, and general turmoil and 

 confusion. They also flew down the hatchway through which the 

 cargo was being passed, being, I presume, attracted by the smell of the 

 hides. One specimen actually took up its position for the night half 

 way down the hatch, was comfortably covered up and conveyed, I 

 have no doubt, safely to our next port, Mayotte, one of the Comoro 

 group, where we arrived early the following morning. No doubt it 

 went ashore, and quite likely reproduced its species. The former 

 method of dispersal was illustrated the same evening, when we were 

 about twenty miles from Majunga, steering a little north of west. 

 There was a fairly stiff westerly breeze, and just after sunset I noticed 

 a large Papilio — black and yellow with very pronounced spatulate tails 

 to the hind wings — being driven by the wind over the ship. The 

 butterfly kept head to wind, and made no attempt to battle against it, 

 but allowed itself to be carried along, merely keeping a certain height 

 above the water. There was a full moon at the time, and it was a 

 beautiful starlight evening, and I have no doubt the butterfly arrived 

 safely at some point on the Madagascar coast during the night. It 

 must have come at least one hundred and fifty miles, i. e. if it came 

 from any of the Comoro Islands. I do not know whether any such 

 butterfly occurs on any of these islands (I did not observe it at 

 Mayotte), and if it does not it must have come from the east coast of 

 Africa, across the Mozambique channel, a distance of some two or 

 three hundred miles. I may mention that some years ago a fine 

 specimen of Papilio hector came on board our steamer at 9 p.m., the 

 evening before we arrived at Colombo. I have in my collection a 

 specimen of Euplcea yondoti, captured at Flacq on the east coast of 

 Mauritius. It is a species peculiar to Reunion, and quite unknown in 

 Mauritius. This insect was in all probability carried by the wind from 

 the one island to the other ; though the extreme rarity of such an 

 occurrence is shown by the fact that, though of a tough constitution 

 and well able to withstand rough usage, it has not succeeded in 



* ' Bijlage Arch. Java-Suikerindustrie,' 1898, 154-8, figs. 1-4. 

 f ' Das Zuckerrohr und Seine Kultur,' 320 and 390-6, figs. 52-5. 



ENTOM. — AUGUST, 1907. R 



