NOTES AND QUERIES. 435 



8vo, Blackwood, 1892). At p. 208 of the first volume this writer observes :— 

 " The butterflies of Ceylon are so beautiful and so varied as to be at all 

 times a joy, whether seen singly, when one glorious creature seems for a 

 moment to have the garden to himself, or in companies of radiant joyous 

 little beings. One of the mysteries of the isle is the annual migration in 

 November and December, and at intervals right on to February, of countless 

 myriads of butterflies in vast flights ; whence they come and whither going, 

 no one can guess. The migration commences with the setting in of the 

 north-east monsoon, with its cool mornings and bright days; and when 

 the stormy wind blows strongest, these delicate insects, impelled by some 

 inexplicable instinct, force their way against it, and during a couple of 

 months successive legions pass on like an ever-flowing stream. I have 

 collected a few notes of observations made on this subject in different years. 

 Thus, in 1884, swarms of dark-coloured butterflies passed over Kandy and 

 Ratnapura on Nov. 19th. On the following day these were succeeded by 

 swarms of white and yellow ones. In 1887 Mr. Le Mesurier, writing from 

 Nuwara Eliya, noted the first flight of the season on Nov. 18th. The flight 

 lasted the whole day; direction from due south-west to north. Wind from 

 south-west. Colour of butterflies speckled dark brown. The next flight he 

 noticed was on Nov. 21st, when two kinds of butterflies, white and sulphur, 

 continued all day passing right over the summit of Pedro from north to 

 due south. The direction of the wind was from the north-east. On Dec. 10th 

 another observer stated that brown and white butterflies had been in flight 

 for some days, flying south. In 1888 the migration northward in the teeth 

 of the wind was observed at Colombo on Nov. 18th, the great flight of white 

 and yellow butterflies being mingled with some of a darker colonr. In 1889 

 flights were observed in the mountain district of Dimbula, about the middle 

 of October, and at Colombo on Nov. 5th, when dark brown butterflies and 

 yellowish-white ones flew in separate columns at a rate of about ten miles 

 an hour. All the accounts (which might be multiplied by observations 

 from all parts of the island, north, south, east, and west, from Manaar to 

 Galle, and from Trincomalee to Negombo) speak only of brown, white, and 

 yellow insects; hence I infer that the glorious butterflies which most 

 delighted us do not risk becoming food for fishes by any such venturesome 

 flights." 



Insect Migration. — I notice a correspondent mentions the abundance 

 of Sphinx convolvuli on the east coast as beiug the probable result of 

 migration on the part of this insect. It may be of interest, although 

 scarcely bearing out your correspondent's theory, to note that Sphinx 

 convolvuli appears to have been equally plentiful on the west coast of 

 Wales. While staying at Barmouth, during September last, I saw nine 

 of these fine insects caught during two or three nights (five on one night, 

 if I recollect rightly), while hovering over a small patch of tobacco-plants in 



