CJt [August, 



Mlgralion of Insects. —The time has come for us (so it seems to me) to leave 

 off theories on this subject, and to keep to facts ; to record very carefully every 

 observation bearing on the point, as well as on those wonderful sudden abundances 

 of species which sometimes occur ; every entomologist must have noticed such. 

 Mr. Stainfon did service by recording the swarms of Lyoasna Phlceas which visited 

 Lowisham a few years ago. I remember myself one season the hedge which lines 

 the well-known drive to Mountsfield being nearly leafless from Cheimatohia brumata. 

 This is specially mentioned, because the character of the female puts her beyond the 

 faintest suspicion of any migration. About ten summers ago the hawthorn here 

 was perfectly devastated by the larvae of Swammerdamia coesiella; it theia became 

 quite a scarce insect for a year or two. It seems to me a demonstrable fact, and one 

 which may be laid down as a basis for observation, that every insect, rare or common, 

 may become, from causes unknown at present to us, unusually abundant, quite in- 

 dependent of any migration. Let us, therefore, now no longer theorize, but observe 

 and record facts, however trivial they may seem, bearing on the point ; press the 

 lighthouses into our service ; and not suppose that migration explains everything. 

 In fact, it explains nothing. There are not armies of Aporia cratcegi waiting at 

 Calais or Dieppe for a favourable wind to invade our coasts ; if there were, their 

 concerted action would be the real mystery: butterflies are not, like locusts, impelled 

 by the devastation of their own swarms to move onwards. The cause is the true 

 marvel ! — Ib. 



Notes on Pancalia LatreilleUa and P. LeeuwenhoeJcella. — Mr. Stainton (Ent. 

 Mo. Mag., xxi, p. 193) asked for the observations of entomologists on the above 

 species. As no one has, I believe, since published any notes on them, and having 

 recently taken the species in considerable plenty, the following notice may be of 

 interest to your readers. 



Guided by the Manual, and by reference to the Doubleday Collection, some six 

 years ago, when I first captured Pancalia LeeuioenhoeJcella, I divided my series into 

 two lots, one containing all the specimens with dark antennffi, the other the speci- 

 mens with a white ring before the tip. The arrangement was purely artificial, as I 

 took the form with dark antennae at the same time and place as those with white 

 ringed antennae. The former I called LatreilleUa, the latter LeeuwenhoeJcella, 



On Saturday last (June 4th) I took a fine series of this species on the Chalk 

 Downs near Strood in Kent. The males were flying about soon after mid-day in the 

 hot sunshine, and the females were running about over and among the grass, but I 

 could see none deposit eggs. They seemed very restless, and took short Jerky flights 

 from one culm to the other, running frequently down among the lower part of the 

 culms, whence it was not easy to get them to stir. I found two specimens on the 

 dogwood {Cornus sanguinea) flowers. 



Having got them home, I found I had captured altogether twenty-three speci- 

 mens, of which three have dark fuscous unicolorous antennsej/owr have the white 

 ring just before the tip of the antennae very faintly marked, and in one nearly 

 obliterated, whilst the others have the white ring very distinct. The finest have a 

 slight thickening just below the white ring of the antennae, but I see no long scales 

 there, although the thickening is distinct. The antennae of these are very charac- 

 teristic, being fuscous at the base, black in the centre (this is the thickened part), 



