MIGRATION AND DISPERSAL OP INSECTS : LEPIDOPTERA. 321 



sands of JJparis .saZ/c/.s appeared at Harwich, having crossed the sea. 

 He reports that he was informed that they arrived at daybreak and 

 resembled a fall of snow they were so numerous, and were also observed 

 many miles out at sea. On the day of arrival they were seen in 

 hundreds at rest on the buildings facing the sea. In the Froceedim/s 

 Ent. Snc. London, 1889, pp. xxxi-xxxiii, is an account of a numerous 

 flight of various kinds of moths observed by Hall about halfway 

 between the river Plate and Eio, and at a distance of over 250 miles 

 from land (lat. 30° S., long. 46° W). The visitation commenced in 

 the evening, lasted more or less all the next day and part of the 

 succeeding night, and, as the ship steamed about 800 miles a day, it 

 follows that the atmosphere for about -400 miles must have been pretty 

 full of the moths, several of which were caught (the names, however, 

 not mentioned). It was supposed that the insects might have been 

 driven off the land by violent westerly winds, but on arrival at Rio, no 

 violent winds appeared to have occurred. When the insects were taken 

 the wind was moderate from N.N.W. The occurrence seemed to be 

 of more than ordinary interest, owing to the many families, genera and 

 species which must have been represented in the swarm, for, besides 

 the specimens preserved, there appear to have been numerous other 

 kinds, large and small. At the same meeting Mr. J. J. Walker stated 

 that he had seen a large number of insects at sea, about 150 miles off 

 the coast of Brazil. Other records may be found in Coppinger's Cruise 

 of the Alert, and we shall have occasion later to refer to Darwin's 

 account of a similar phenomenon in the Voijatje of the Ileaijle. Walker 

 further notes {Ent. Mo. Ma;/., xix., p. 1) the capture of a very large 

 moth, somewhat like N. eonrolndi, but seven inches in expanse, that 

 flew on board H.M.S. Kingfisher when oft" Calloa, in November, 1881, 

 whilst he also took in the same manner Naropsis fastuosa, a species 

 figured in the Ent. Mo. Marf., vol. iv., p. 193, from a specimen taken 

 in Limehouse, in what may be termed the centre of the London docks. 

 Of the stronger-winged species Cordeaux notes (Nat., August, 1884) 

 that some years since many Sjihinx conrolvidi were washed up by the waves 

 on the coast between Spurn and Kilnsea, having doubtless perished in 

 crossing, and quite recently three Aeherontia atrojws were received, the 

 moths taken on vessels far from land in the North Sea. A fine speci- 

 men of 'S. eonrolndi is reported by Bold to have been taken on board 

 the Lord Eaglan, September 29th, 1868, at sea, five miles from Tyne- 

 mouth, and another, captured on a sailing vessel at some distance from 

 the land whilst making for the Tyne. Webb notes another specimen of 

 the same species that tiew on board a smack in the North Sea, GO miles 

 from land, towards the end of August, 1895. Fothergill observes that, 

 in 1877, a specimen of Aeherontia atropo)^ flew on board the steamer 

 Cameroons, when on a voyage home from Africa and 200 miles off" the 

 Cape Verde Islands. Another example was captured between Algiers and 

 Gibraltar, another 25 miles off' the Irish coast, whilst Kerry notes {Ent., 

 xii., p. 271) another caught on board the Cork lightship, moored seven 

 miles from the coast, at Harwich, in September 1879. Frohawk 

 exhibited (Proe. Sth. Lond. Ent. Soe., 1895, p. 52) an example of this 

 insect washed ashore in Glamorganshire in the autumn of 1895, and 

 another taken at the lighthouse of St. Agnes, Scilly. Billups 

 exhibited at the meeting of the Ent. Soc. of London, September 24th, 

 1891, a specimen of Deilephila eapcn.sis captured at sea some 472 miles 



