EXCURSION INTO NORTHUMBERLAND. 305 



flourishes profusely here, did not furnish a single insect. Coast- 

 ing the pretty bay of Embleton, solitary individuals of the fly, 

 figured by Curtis as Helcomyza ustulata (Actora gestuum, Meigen) 

 fled my advancing footsteps along the beach. The sand here has 

 an ochreous tinge probably acquired from the iron that enters 

 into the composition of the adjacent basaltic rocks. Near the 

 crags at Dunstanborough, Philonthus micans, Lithocharis ocTi- 

 racea, and Stenus filum were found secreted under decaying 

 herbage, on the site of a dried up pool. Colymhetes chalconotus 

 frequented the stagnant ditches, and C. paludosiis the running 

 waters. Behind the wall of the Castle, near the brink of the 

 famous " Rumble Churn," I picked up Dyschirius gihhus. The 

 Cynthia Cardui was sporting about here, as it had done on the 

 previous day, on the heights near Budle, and this species has been 

 rather common during the season. In connection with this, it 

 may be worthy of notice that M. Ghiliani, of Turin, has re- 

 corded an extensive migration of this butterfly, observed on the 

 26th of April, 1851, in many provinces of Piedmont. The flight 

 was directed towards the N.N.E. (Ann. Soc. Ent. France, 1851, 

 Bulletin, Iv.). Can any portion of these wanderers have reached 

 our shores 1 Some of the basalt here is pitted, as if riddled with 

 small shot. 



June 27th. — While examining the fissures of the limestone 

 rocks to the south of North Sunderland, I dug out A'epus fulves- 

 cens. The wild thymes (Thymus Ser^pylliim ) here had many of 

 those enlarged cottony buds, caused by the larvae of a mite occu- 

 pying them. This was first pointed out by Loew (Dipterologische 

 Beitrage, iv., 24., Posen, 1850), and was at one time considered 

 to be owing to a Psylla (Chermes, Lightfoot, Flora Scot., i., 18), 

 or to the larvae of a gall-midge (Cecidomyia) that harboured 

 within them. The older botanists accounted plants in this con- 

 dition as a distinct species. It forms the Serpillum vulgare^ 

 minus, capituUs lanuginosis of Caspar Bauhin (Pinax, 220), and 

 of Tournefort (Hist. Plant. Paris, 149). Tournefort, however, 

 who had examined into the nature of several galls, ascribed th© 

 appearance to an insect. "While leaning against a grassy wall, I 

 got stung by one of the solitary bees, Halictus ruhicundus. I 



