282 • MB. n. TKIMEN's notes on TUE aEOGEAPniCAL 



5. A large Sphinx (perhaps Sphinx Convolvuli) . June 7th. 

 About 420 miles from Sierra Leone. 



6. Sphinx Convolvuli. June 8th. About the same distance 

 from Sierra Leone as on the preceding day. 



7. Glytus sp. ignot. (smaller than G. Ariclis). June 25th. 

 About 150 miles from Bahia. 



In addition to the above, I occasionally saw large insects 

 which I could not determine, but which I usually thought to be 

 Sphinges of some description, whisk rapidly about the rigging, 

 and was besides often told of " butterflies " and other insects 

 noticed by the passengers and sailors. Pyrameis Gardui after 

 settling for a few seconds on the binnacle, and Sphinx Convolvuli 

 after hovering about some vegetables hanging in one of the boats 

 amidships, alike sped away westward. On this voyage, it should 

 be noted that the ship was a perfectly new one, and had never 

 left England before. 



A specimen of Acridium peregrinum, in the collection of the 

 British Museum, is noted (Cat. Dermapt. Saltat. iii. p. 577) as 

 having been taken " 500 miles from land ;" but the latitude and 

 longitude are not mentioned. 



The record of such occurrences of insects is much to be desired 

 as an aid to better knowledge of the dispersal of species ; and 1 

 would commend the subject to the attentioii of travellers across 

 the ocean, 



; At p. 55, Mr. Murray notes what he considers "a very re- 

 markable African affinity" in the Lepidoptera of Australia, in 

 reference to the case of the larva of Doratophora vtdnerans, 

 Lewin. The instances which he cites as analogous, however, 

 are very different in character ; for he quotes the mention 

 by Livingstone " of a caterpillar called JRigura producing fearful 

 agony if a sore is touched loith its entrails" and the state- 

 ment made by Baynes and other travellers, that a caterpillar 

 is used by the Bushmen to poison their arrows. It is evi- 

 dent that, if a caterpillar be used at all for poisoning arrows 

 (concerning which report my inquiries have hitherto been at- 

 tended by no satisfactory result), it must be the intestines or 

 juices of the animal which are so employed. But the case of Bora- 

 tifera* vtdnerans is the common one of (what appears to be 

 mechanical) irritation by means of clusters of spines, a defence 

 possessed by many. caterpillars, not only in Australia and South 

 * The name of the genus is thus given by Duncan and Walker. 



