Migrant Moths One of the most curious examples of insect
multiplication, or of its effects, in our entornological annals hai been recorded (on the authority of the editor of the Western Morning 'News) in the South of England. Thanks largely to the persistent naccumulateoe ahon t,etdhe inm tghra t iloans at energy of one organimser, swoef heavaidee
two or three years a mass of insects across the seas, even, it is alleged, across the Atlantic. The discoveries have been due in no small degree to the watchers on lighthouses and lightships who have been mobilised for the work all round the coast. The August record from the famous Start Lighthouse off the coast of Devon is of the
r eYd a- in, perhaps a passembleds in thous ariltidtsd. strangest. Vastrrhbeayndwsereofins'illuvieldr
set out to sea.
Those that were caught and released later at once took the same route as the migrant host. So far as I know no one so to say, or use of nit in any way coin- bits so much as a theory aboutthaereai
these insect movements. They
parable with the migration of birds. None of the migrants from Europe to England return to their first home and they do not in certain species leave any progeny that can survive the winter. Yet the migratory instinct is very strong and compelling on occasion. Hordes of common white butterflies will sweep along the East Coast in numbers that suggest a snow storm. Bodies hardly less numerous descend South from North Europe, and later swing to the West and brave the North Sea or the Channel crossing. The movement is less like that of the birds than of the lemmings. These strange little quadrupeds when numerous will immolate themselves in sea or lake in hundreds when the fit is upon them. Yet in this ease the pressure of population and absence of food are probably the efficient cause. The Y-moths can scarcely have been driven by such an influence. Omits exeunt in mysteriarn—even. -moths so go out of England. The Way of a Fish
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