VARIATION OF EPUNDA LUTULENTA. 155 



times, the insect returned each time after flying away five or six 

 yards." The flight ended that niglit ahout A.O p.m., having been 

 incessant for more than twelve hours. On the 27th they appeared again 

 about noon, flying in the same direction, but in much reduced forces. 

 For some days after a few were seen, but very few. " The papers say 

 that they were observed in all southern and central Sweden, and in 

 many places in Denmark, and they swarmed about the ships on the 

 Sound. With their disappearance came the hot weather." It would, 

 indeed, have been remarkable had the dragonflies eaten the fruit. The 

 last sentence of this paragraph suggests a reason for the migration, an 

 instinctive warning as it were, that their native pools might be 

 dried up. 



The master of the " Swin Middle" light-vessel, stationed not far 

 from Shoeburyness, and, therefore, near the mouth of the Thames, 

 sent examples of L. quadriijiaviilafa to Cordeaux for determination, and 

 reported that " on June 23rd, 1888, from 6.0 p.m. to 8.0 p.m., a flock 

 of this dragonfly came on board and rested on the ropes, and even on 

 the cable with which the vessel was moored, from the bows down close 

 to the Avater's edge. The wind Avas east by south, the weather fine and 

 clear," andhe states that he "never saw anything like it before." McLach- 

 lan supposed from the direction of the wind that the specimens came, in 

 all probability, from Holland, and contrived to arrive just before night- 

 fall. The following year, 1889, Hall records a flight of L. quadriwacu- 

 lata that he observed from the Admiralty Pier of Dover, on June 6th 

 of that year. He incidentally remarks that he had previously witnessed 

 extraordinary flights of this species in France, similar to that reported 

 by Newton, as having occurred at Malmo, in Sweden, and adds that 

 although the swarm was small, he had never seen nor heard of one 

 like that observed at Dover. He says that hundreds of specimens of 

 this species and its ab. pracnubila, Newm., Avere to be seen flying round 

 the middle of the pier. The weather was dull and oppressively hot, 

 with a slight wind from the north-east, and the dragonflies appeared 

 to have come up with the storm clouds from the sea in a south-westerly 

 direction. The heavy rain and thunderstorm the same evening must 

 have made havoc among them ; however, hundreds were seen the next 

 day, and a few on the 8th, but they had entirely disappeared by the 10th. 

 They Avere very difiicult to catch owing to their rapid movements and 

 their habit of settling under the parapet on the outside of the pier. 

 . . . The insects were confined to the vicinity of the pier and were 

 not observed in the toAvn. 



Variation of Epunda lutulenta, Bkh. 



By llEV. C. E. N. BURROWS. 

 During last autumn I Avas both pleased and interested in a somc- 

 Avhat large capture of this insect at sugar, in my garden, and during 

 the Avinter months have been trying to find out Avhat is, and Avhat is 

 not, knoAvn about the species. From the books at my disposal I learned 

 little about my captures. Stainton {}[ani(al, vol. i., p. 266) describes 

 it thus : — ^" F.-Av. dark broAvn, sometimes blackish : the margins of the 

 stigmata hardly indicated; the inner and elboAved lines sometimes 

 visil)lc, and the space bctAvecn them darker. Hind-Avings of male, Avhite, 

 of female, grey." NeAvman {British Moths, p. 296) says :—" Fore- 



