IMPERFECT SOCIETIES OE INSECTS. 



9 



Some years afterwards I noticed a mixture of species, col- 

 lected in vast numbers, on the sand-hills on the sea shore, at 

 the north-west extremity of Norfolk. My friend, the Rev. 

 Peter Lathbury, made long since a similar observation at 

 Orford, on the Suffolk coast ; and about five or six years ago 

 they covered the cliffs, as I have before remarked, of all the 

 watering places on the Kentish and Sussex coasts, to the no 

 small alarm of the superstitious, who thought them fore- 

 runners of some direful evil. 1 These last probably emigrated 

 with the Aphides from the hop grounds. Whether the latter 

 and their devourers cross the sea has not been ascertained ; 

 that the Coccinelke attempt it, is evident from their alighting 

 upon ships at sea, as I have witnessed myself. 2 This 

 appears clearly to have been the case with another emigrating 

 insect, the saw-fly (Athalia centifolice) of the turnip. 3 It is 

 the general opinion in Norfolk, Mr. Marshall informs us 4 , 

 that these insects come from over sea. A farmer declared 

 he saw them arrive in clouds so as to darken the air; the 

 fishermen asserted that they had repeatedly seen flights of 

 them pass over their heads when they were at a distance 

 from land ; and on the beach and cliffs they were in such 

 quantities, that they might have been taken up by shovels 

 full. Three miles inland they were described as resembling 

 swarms of bees. This was in August, 1782. Unentomo- 

 logical observers, such as farmers and fishermen, might easily 

 mistake one kind of insect for another ; but supposing them 

 correct, the swarms in question might perhaps have passed 

 from Lincolnshire to Norfolk. Meinecken tells us, that he 

 once saw in a village in Anhalt, on a clear day, about four 

 in the afternoon, such a cloud of dragon-flies {IJbellulind) as 

 almost concealed the sun, and not a little alarmed the vil- 



1 Some such terrific idea would seem to have entered the sapient heads of the 

 authorities of one of the principal towns of Berkshire, which in October, 1835, 

 according to the Reading Mercury, having had " a most formidable invasion of 

 this beautiful insect [lady-birds] .... the parish engines, as well as private 

 ones, were called into requisition, with tobacco-fumigated water, to attack and 

 disperse them." [! ! !] 



2 Mr. Curtis informs us that the aphidivorous flies ( Scceva Ribesii, Pyrastri, 

 &c), like the lady-birds, sometimes appear in myriads on the sea coast, all flying 

 in one direction, and not even avoiding objects that lie in their course. (Brit. 

 Ent. fol. 509. ) 



3 Fn. Germ. hut. xlix. 18. 4 philos. Trans. Ixxiii. 217. 

 VOL. II. *B 5 



