NATURAL HISTORY OF THE BERMUDAS. 321 



Captain Fitzroy and Mr. Darwin allude to a vast host of 

 countless myriads of Butterflies met with ten miles off the 

 bay of St. Bias, on the east coast of South America, which 

 consisted chiefly of a species very similar to the English 

 Colias edusa. Captain Fitzroy estimated this insect multi- 

 tude to be not less than one mile in width, several miles in 

 length, and two hundred yards in height. The seamen on 

 board the ship observed that it was " snowing butterflies." 

 Mr. Darwin states that the day on which this occurred 

 was fine and calm, but that before sunset a strong breeze 

 sprang up from the north, which must have caused tens of 

 thousands of the butterflies and other insects to have 

 perished. 



March, 1876. — Mr. John Mathew Jones has recently 

 given to the world, through the pages of a periodical 

 ("Psyche"), published by the Entomological Club, of Cam- 

 bridge, United States, an interesting account of the arrival 

 of the vast concourse of Lepidoptera in the Bermudas. 



It is stated by that gentleman that " early in the morn- 

 ing of the 1st of October, 1874, several persons living on 

 the north side of the main island, perceived, as they 

 thought, a cloud comihg over from the north-west, which 

 drew nearer and nearer to the shore, on reaching which it 

 divided into two parts, one of which went eastward, and 

 the other westward, gradually falling upon the land. They 

 were not long in ascertaining that what they had taken for 

 a cloud was an immense concourse of Butterflies {Terias 

 lisa), which flitted about all the open grassy patches and 

 cultivated grounds in a lazy manner, as if fatigued after their 

 long voyage over the deep. Fishermen out near the reefs, 

 some few miles to the north of the islands, very early in 

 the morning, stated that numbers of these insects fell upon 

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