the Phale‘na typicdides. 4.05 
intruders took place; and my astonishment. was not a little 
increased on finding, as they collected in accumulated. bodies 
round the lamp, with not more than two or three exceptions, 
the mass consisted of these hitherto unobserved Phalze ne typi- 
coldes. Soon after ten o’clock, when the shower had subsided, 
the assemblage diminished, and at length my visiters altoge- 
ther retired; and from that hour to this I have never again 
observed a single specimen. 
Granting that the peculiar circumstances of the rain or 
electrical state of the air may have driven them to the light 
of the window and lamp, I cannot but think, if they had 
been tolerably plentiful either in previous or subsequent 
years, I must have detected a few stray individuals; and I 
can only account for the inundation on this evening by ex- 
traordinary broods having been bred in the neighbourhood, 
or that this vast flight was performing an act of itinerancy, 
during which it was overtaken by the shower, and compelled 
to seek protection under the closing shelter of the trellis+ 
work. To this latter opinion I feel the more inclined to 
accede, from the circumstance that, with the exception of the 
small nettle (Urtica urens), the other plants on which the 
larvee are said to feed, viz. white mullein (Verbascum Lych- 
nitis), motherwort (Leondrus Cardiaca), hound’s-tongue (Cy- 
nogléssum officinale), bay-leaved willow (Salix pentandra), 
are some of them rather scarce, and none of them certainly 
plentiful in the vicinity; and the authorities for the occa- 
sional migration of insects, of the various orders Coleoptera, 
Lepidéptera, Hemiptera, &c., are too strong and too nume- 
rous to admit of doubt as to the fact. ‘Thus, Mr. Mar- 
sham mentions the case of a lady’s dress being covered with 
Cicadze bifasciatee*, a small hemipterous insect by no means 
common; when, onthe following day, the same steps being taken 
to procure some, not a single one could be found. ‘The same 
circumstance was noticed by a friend of his a few years 
afterwards; and it was their opinion that the insects in ques- 
tion were migrating. A similar occurrence relating to a 
family of the same order, viz. Cicada spumaria, or froth 
froghopper, is alluded to by Mr. Kirby on the authority of 
Professor Walch, whose case in some degree resembles mine, 
He says, that one night about eleven o’clock, sitting in his 
study, his attention was attracted by what seemed the pelting 
of hail against his window; which surprising him by its long 
continuance, he opened the window, and found the noise to 
proceed from a flight of these little froghoppers, which en- 
tered the room in such numbers as to cover the table. Ona 
* See Donoy. pl. 387. 
