NOTKS, CAPTURES, ETC. 275 



specimen that, while a young lady was teasing it when held in 

 my hand by the leaping-legs, it actually jumped right off its 

 legs in order to gel at her, leaving them " kicking" in my 

 hand; which circumstance nnich disconcerted the tormentor. 

 Vegetable matter is, I think, generally considered to be the 

 food of all grasshoppers ; but my observations in one case 

 showed me a very different state of things: of a pair that I 

 kept alive in a gauze cage the female used to spend the 

 whole of the day trying to catch small grasshoppers, which 

 seemed to hold her in great terror. 1 have repeatedly seen 

 her catch them and devour a part of them, nearly always 

 breaking their necks first; and then she would, as a rule, 

 drop them in a certain place, and then go after others. Is 

 cannibalism usual with these insects ? The male I observed 

 eating the seeds of a dock plant that was growing within the 

 cage. One male greedily drank some drops of moth-sugar 

 that were spilt on a window-sill. They are not good hoppers, 

 but can run fast, which is their usual method of locomotion. 

 They are by no means such powerful hoppers as their 

 congener Clypeata. This species, from what 1 have noticed, 

 seems to have a decidedly maritime taste. — H. Hodge ; 

 33, Almorah Road, Islington, N., October 14, 1878. 



Neuroterus l.eviusculus. — During the present autumn 

 the scarce oak-spangle gall o{ Neuroterus Ueviusculus has been 

 remarkably plentiful in some districts; and having been so 

 recently noticed as an English gall (Entom. x. 122) it would 

 be of interest if some of our gall observers would mention 

 how far north its spread (or its presence, this year) has been 

 observed. In the neighbourhood of Isleworth it has been 

 sufficiently plentiful for me to be able with a little search to 

 secure specimens whenever they were needed. In West 

 Gloucestershire, and about a mile west of Chepstow (Mon.), I 

 found it on October 5th in great numbers ou oak, cut back 

 into low bushes in the hedge of a wood in a somewhat damp 

 locality, where the infested s|)rays overhung or were close to 

 a neglected ditch. The galls were remarkably good speci- 

 mens, both as to development and the peculiar faint salmon- 

 tint characteristic of this species ; and on some larger leaves 

 in a sheltered spot in one of the deep sunk Gloucestershire 

 lanes hard by I found as many as four hundred on tlie back 

 of more than one oak leaf, this number far exceeding any 

 quantity of this gall that I have met with before on a single 

 leaf. Around Maldon, Mr. Fitch writes me he has observed 

 the galls of N. Iceviunculus in such numbers this year as 



