MISCELLANEA. 185 



XVIII. — Miscellaneous Notices and Observations. 



On the Occurrence of Grylliis migrator ius on the coast near the 

 Tyne. — The migratory locust Gryllus migratorius^ lias appeared 

 this autumn in unusual numbers on the coast, a little north of 

 the Tyne. A person living at CuUercoats has six specimens, 

 which were all taken near that village in the latter end of 

 August, or beginning of September. I was on the coast on the 

 7th of the latter month, and had the satisfaction of capturing one 

 of these fine insects. A gentleman was with me; he sprung the 

 game and pronounced it to be neither a bird nor a bat, but some- 

 thing very mysterious. It had settled in a ploughed field ; he 

 soon raised it again, when it took off to sea, hurried onward by a 

 strong breeze that was blowing from the land. It presently 

 however, recovered itself, and returning, alighted on the sea 

 banks, when it was at once taken. I was mentioning the cap- 

 ture of this individual to the son of Mr. Duncan, the bird-stuf!x3r, 

 and he informed me that exactly a fortnight before my visit to 

 the coast, he was shooting at St. Mary's Island, when he was 

 surprised by a flight of locusts, which came from the sea, and 

 appeared to settle on the island, though he could not find them at 

 that time. He thought that there could not be less than 200. 

 He caught two of them the following day. Mr. Atthey procured 

 two specimens from the neighbourliood of Whitley, and Mr. 

 Hutchinson, a fisherman, saw one near Whitburn, which a cat 

 pounced upon and carried off whilst he and others were trying to 

 catch it. Several specimens have also been brought into New- 

 castle and offered for sale. — John Hancock, lYewcastte, October, 

 1858. 



Notes on Rosa rubella. — About the year 1823, I found the 

 plant which I conclude is Rosa rubella for the first time, and I 

 have mentioned it in my List of Plants appended to Brewster s 

 2nd Edition Hist. Stockton, No. 57, thus: — "A Var. with 

 reddish flowers, has been found in the lane between Carlton and 

 Norton." — I then considered it as a Var. of R. spinosissima. Mr. 

 Winch a few years afterwards requested that I would send him 



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