42, TRANSACTIONS LIVERPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 
is perfectly true, but the proposition I am attempting to 
make good is not that whenever we have a very dry 
autumn, then during the next year must galw necessarily 
abound but that so far no ‘‘ gali1”’ year has occurred (that we 
have any record of) without such a particularly dry 
antecedent autumn, and that therefore we are not 
unjustified in provisionally assuming that one of the most 
potent causes which occasions these seasons of abundance 
is the increased healthiness and consequent increased 
larval survivals due to the absence of rain. Why this 
particular larve should be so specially susceptible to wet 
when adult or nearly so, is a question, which only 
investigation into its physiology could adequately answer, 
but a consideration of its habits perhaps tends to confirm 
such a belief. When young it rather affects the shelter 
of the galium and seems to feed lower down among the 
leaves, but the adult Iarve scorn any protection and as 
Mr. Arkle a local observer quoted by Mr. Dale says, 
“Are fond of feeding and exposing themselves in the 
hotest sunshine where the galium grows thin and short.” 
The larva too is quite glabrous and hence probably feels 
the effect of rain more intimately than do pubescent 
larve. So that from what we know of the nature and 
habits of this insect itself, we might readily believe that it 
might be specially affected by rain. 
Such then is the conclusion to which my investigation 
into this interesting subject has led me. I am aware 
how rash it is to seek to establish any theory in a series 
of tests so few as are available in this case, besides which, 
the most superficial examination of all low forms of life 
cannot fail to impress with a sense of its extreme com- 
plexity, its nice mutual adjustments, its infinite interaction 
and correlation, and I hold in this case that atmospheric 
is only one of an innumerable array of influences exerted 
