

78 



GEOGEAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION AND 



[Ch. XL. 



a varying streak."^ The same species is said to be one of 

 the few insects which are universally dispersed over the 

 earthy being found in Europe, Asia, Africa, America, and 

 Australia. Its wide rangre 



seems to im 



by few species, of enduring a great diversity of tempera- 

 ture, and is the more interesting because of the migratory 



sometimes 



formingr a column 



to fifteen feet broad, was, in 1826, observed in the Canton de 

 Vaud : they traversed the country with great rapidity from 

 north to south, all flying onwards in regular order, close 

 together, and not turning from their course on the approach 

 of other objects. Professor Bonelli, of Turin, observed, in 

 March of the same year, a similar swarm of the same species, 

 also directing their flight from north to south, in Piedmont, 

 in such immense numbers that at night the flowers were 



literally covered with 

 Coni, Raconi, Susa, &c. 



them. They had been traced from 

 A similar flight at the end of the 

 last century is recorded by M. Louch, in the Memoirs of the 

 Academy of Turin. The fact is the more worthy of notice, 

 because the caterpillars of this butterfly are not gregarious, 



Tom the moment 

 remains dormant 



they are hatched ; and 



ration passes away, till it suddenly displays itself in full 

 energy when their numbers happen to be in excess. 



The European hive-bee {Apis mellijica), although not a 

 native of the New World, is now established both in "N"orth 



and South Amer 



It was introduced into the United 



some 



the vast forests of the interior, building hives in the decayed 

 trunks of trees. ' The Indians,' says Irving, ^ consider them 

 as the harbinger of the white man, as the buff^alo is of the 

 red man, and say that in proportion as the bee advances the 

 Indian and the buffalo retire. It is said,' continues the 

 same writer, 'that the wild bee is seldom to be met with at 

 any great distance from the frontier, and that they have 

 always been the heralds of civilisation, preceding it as it 

 advanced from the Atlantic borders. Some of the ancient 



* Kirby and Spenco, vol. iv. p. 487; and otlier authors. 



) 





I 



k 



I 



