Page:The Scientific Monthly vol. 3.djvu/244

 238 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

evidences to uphold this contention. A large bumble bee (or bee re- sembling fly as yet undetermined) has been seen driving steadily «eet- ward along both the Long Island and Connecticut highways, io eaeh case flying side by side with the "monarchs." Along the Maine eosst, too, according to a communication from Mr. Norton of the PortlaDd Natural History Society, large bumble bees have been observed fljing steadily westward across the water between the offshore islands and following the same general route which "monarchs" and birds pursue. Certain tiniall fliea, flytliea, have !)een reported by Seudder, migra- ting along the New Hampshire coast in the same general directicn

��I'm. C. " MONABCHR " ItBHTIXO UN THE1B MlRUTIUS THSOiaH KANSAB. Tbll

Oash-IIgbl photograph, publlabed thraugh Ibe courtesf ot MIra Jennie Brooks, repre- ■enls B part o( lb» l,«wr«ice Bwarm o( lOOit described by her In Counlrj Life for Aaguat, 1911. In 1906 larger swarmg. also described bj Mlsa Brooks In Harpers for June, 190T. rested for the night on the same tree.

already followed by a late summer " monarch " procession. The dragon- fly swarms reported by Root on Point Pelee were preceded by large flocks of "deer flies" that seemed a part of the seasonal movement i while Eimer prefaces his description of a dragonfly flight in Switzer- land by saying that swarms of the "flower flies" Erwtalis tenax and Syrphus lavandulw preceded the dragonflies, which were then upon a southward, September migration. So, as great numbers of Eristalis tenax have been seen resting along the Long Island highway where tKey are rare in the earlier season, further studies may establish a definitt connection between these movements and the flights of certain insect- eating birds.

It is not impossible, in fact, that such a southward trend, or diminu tion of the smaller insects in the farther north, may take place in suffi cient measure to account for the initial movements of the dragonflies Certainly it does not seem true in this local region. For when th

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