The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1901-06-20

the mouth of the Plata, and also off the
Patagonian shore, the ship was Otter
| surrounded by insects. "One evening,
he writes. when we were ten miles
from the bay of st. Bias, vast num-
bers of butterflies, in bands or focks
of countless myriads, extended as far
as the eye could range. More species
than one were present but the main
number We're very similar to the COM
mon English Colias edusa. Even by the
aid of a telescope it was not possible
to see a space free from butterflies.
Some seamen cried out 1T was snow
ing butterflies 3"
There seems to be an occasional mi
grafton of insects into this country
across the North Sea. Very few people
who have lived on the coast OF Nor
folk or Suffolk doubt it. From time to
time insects are found washed up by
! the waves, or floating near the shore
in numbers like dust for multitude. !"
1t Is possible that they were blown Off
shore first, and then washed up again,
by change of wind. But it does not
seem probable that they would be in
| SuCll COIilpdCl lllHoSto IL uiolNiHS' INV
! struggling against an adverse gale at
| some distance fro inland. On the other
hand, it is well known that birds some
times fall into the sea from exhaustion
when crossing toward land, and the
case of these ladybirds seems much the
same. Sometimes the drowned invad-
ers consist of black flocks of the tiny
turnip beetles, which lie on the waves
like SCOT. Fishermen who spend much
of their time off the mouth of the
Wash and North Norfolk coast have
told the writer that butterflies con-
stantly visit their boats flying in from
the sea; and from time to time blue
butterflies are seen lying at short inter-
walls, from yard to yard, along miles of
the sea fringe of sand on the Lincoln
coast
Plague of Locusts.
The painted lady butterfly appears to
assemble for migration as swallows do.
Great columns of them many yards
wide have been seen flying in given
direction. A locust alghted on the
deck of the Beagle at distance of
three hundred and seventy miles from
land. If an insect only four inches long
can make such a flight no limits can
be set to the possible migrations Of To-
Gusts. They cross seas and even noun
tains. Some years ago they appeared
near Darjeeling. Whence they came is
not precisely known. But it Is believed
that the crossed the Himalayas from
Thibet. The invaslons of locusts are
best remembered when for some reason
unknown they decide to leave the re-
gions over which their flight is gener-
ally taken, and to make vast aerial
trek into others. Such invasons nat
urally attract great attention. The
records remain, emphasized by the ac-
tual losses inflicted, and not infre
quently by more serious misfortunes.
In the Middle Ages locust invasion of |
the North or West was regarded as
one of the regular precursors of great !
pestllences. They are noted as among |
the forerunners of these great calami
ties. In 1923 there appeared in the !
Mark Of Brandenburg during the prev |
alence of a southeast wind and a great |
drouth, sWarms of locusts, 'as if this
too of great epidemics was /
not to be wanting says Hecker, This
prgonostic'' had been observed before
the Black Death in the fourteenth CEN
fury, the beginning of the "morbific
conditions" in the Far East having
been innumerable locust swarms
which destroyed the crops in Human,
and caused the famine which pestil-
ence followed. Locusts appeared in
Franconia in incredible swarms in
1897, and the celebrated "stiking msts'
which spread over italy in 134s were
made worse by the odor of putrefylng
ocusts, which had spread from the
East to the West The locusts were
as having been summoned by
celestial wrath to complete the destruc-
Ion of mankind which earthquake,
anime and pestilence had begun. In
542 swarms of locusts migrated from
he interior of Asia. and travelled
across Europe as far north as the Elbe
md as far south as Spain. The Turks
we're then invading Hungary, and by
natural coincidence brought the
plague with them.
Induced migration Of insects offers
ome curious points in political natural
history. At the beginning of the last
century the possibility of introducing
d in India. Red dye was expensive
nd scarce; but red was color highly
rized and for which there was great
emand. Clearly if the cochineal could ,
e introduced there would be a sale to ..
vast local popula ton. The cultva-
ion of the cactus on which 1t fed, and
the insects themselves, which are
lanted out in little communities on !
ach young cactus plant, seemed exact /.
Y suited for the laborious Hindoos To
id to the wealth of the many nations :
nd languages of the peninsula by the !
lduced migration of one hardy plant
nd little red blight seemed almost a i
atural miracle yet a possible one.
et for some reason, though the econo-
tic arguments were all sound, the
ochineal insect refused to migrate t
itb q cbearfI1 mind IF nolrisbed | N