8602 



Insects. 



from Dover, offers easy access to our shores by the following 

 means. Suppose a ship bound for this country from France, — 

 what is to prevent an insect taking refuge on board or in the rigging, 

 passing a few hours away in rest after a long flight, and before it wakes 

 from its dream being carried to a foreign country to die alone, far 

 from all its relations. This mode of immigration is not merely a sur- 

 mise of my own, but I have been informed that an insect was observed 

 to travel from one country to another in the manner described.* 



It is also a known fact that insects of various orders, including 

 Lepidoptera, have the power of keeping on the wing a long time, and 

 flying an immense distance, quite far enough to bring them from the 

 shores of France to those of England. In confirmation of what I 

 have written I extract a few lines from an article by the late Mr. 

 Wolley in the fifth volume of the ' Zoologist ' (Zool. 1900). He says, 

 " Migratory flights of butterflies of various species have often been . 

 observed. Swarms of white butterflies have been actually seen to 

 arrive at Dover. Can we doubt that the Sphinx Convolvuli as well 

 as the locusts of last year, the Colias Hyale of two or three years 

 before, the Vanessa Antiopa of some score years since, and also the 

 occasional specimens of V. Antiopa, of Pontia Daplidice, of Argynnis 

 Lathonia, and perhaps even of Papilio Podalirius, are arrivals from 

 the Continent ? Might we not even extend this to Colias Edusa, and 

 consider it a more regular immigrant ? Nay, the common Cynthia 

 Cardui is a notoriously migratory butterfly, not even fearing to cross 

 the snow of the highest Alps." With this extract I think I have 

 clearly answered the question 1 thought would be asked by some of 

 the members, How was it possible to take insects in this country that 

 did not breed here ? but I may observe that what I have written on 

 the migration of insects is not confined to P. Daplidice, but will 

 apply equally to most of the other species I exhibit. 



Vanessa Antiopa. This butterfly has good claims to be called 

 British from its repeated occurrence in Great Britain, though I can 

 find but little evidence that the larva has ever been found in England. 

 In 1859-60 a goodly number of this species were taken, but from what 

 cause they should occur plentifully in one year and entirely disappear 

 the next is a question yet to be solved, and one which opens a wide 



* A relation of mine on leaving the pier at Calais observed the rigging of the 

 steamer to he crowded with " white butterflies," which never left the position they had 

 taken up during the passage. Whether they returned with the packet, and whether they 

 were P. Hapse, P. Napi or P. Daplidice I have no means of forming even a guess. — 

 E. Newman. 



