Abstract
REFERRING to the letter from Mr. A. S. E. Acker-mann entitled “A Curious Atmospheric Phenomenon”, in NATURE of September 10, several correspondents suggest that the curious grey columns described by him were due to swarms of Chironomus, the Harlequin fly. Swarms of these insects dance about in the air at evening time and are commonly called “gnats”, to which they have considerable resemblance, though they differ from them in being entirely harmless. They often appear in columns on a calm evening and the columns may break up and re-form with a wavy motion. Capt. C. J. P. Cave writes: “I once saw a number of such columns on a very still evening in Lombardy. At first I took them to be very small narrow pillars of smoke from burning weeds, but a closer view showed them to be swarms of gnats. The whole description given by Mr. Ackermann tallies with my recollection of the phenomenon.”
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Smoke-like Swarms of the Harlequin Fly. Nature 142, 505 (1938). https://doi.org/10.1038/142505b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/142505b0