HORDES OF INSECTS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19952, 20 November 1926, Page 2

HORDES OF INSECTS.

■AIR SEEMED ALIVE FOR MILES,

Descriptions of incalculable hordes of locusts which darken the sky and lay the country desolate for miles are well known, but locusts are uot the only insects that form companies impossible to number. In Illinois, we are told of a vast migration of dragon-flies, when the air seemed alive for miles around, and Bates speaks in his “Naturalist on the Amazon” of great areas where it was Impossible to walk without disturbing Immense numbers of butterflies amidst which is identified no fewer than 80 species. When the “painted lady" butterfly is on migration the numbers drawn together are almost incredible. A correspondent writes that In the spring of this year he drove from Lydda to the Dead Sea, and thence along the Jordan, returning via Jerusalem and Jericho. Throughout the entire journey, until the sun had set, a constant stream of “painted ladies” was in progress, all proceeding in a northerly direction. These vast swarms spread over Europe, many, indeed, reaching Britain.