Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 July 2016
Neyman, Park and Scott (1956) describe an experiment which they performed to determine the spatial distribution of Tribolium confusum developing within a closed container. To explain the concentration of beetles at the boundary a birth–death–migration model is developed in which the beetles may migrate over a set of lattice points, and this is shown to produce a distribution of the required shape. Not only is this distribution independent of the number of lattice points, but it is also indistinguishable from the associated diffusion process.