52 



Though well distributed in Europe, its range in Britain is chiefly 

 southern. There are records* of its occurrence from Cornwall 

 (C. W. Bracken) to Kent (Burr), and as far as Gloucestershire 

 (J. Edwards), Notts (A. Thornley), and Lincoln (J. F. Musham). 

 Porritt records it from Penmaenmawr in North Wales. It has been 

 taken at Fermoy and Howth in Ireland {fide S. W. Kemp), and has 

 once been met with in Scotland, at Luce Bay in Wigtownshire (J. 

 G. Gordon). Specimens kept in captivity fed well on rose leaves 

 and on those of the mountain ash (a rosaceous plant also) ; but on 

 one occasion one of three placed alive in a glass-topped tin box, 

 disappeared with the exception of small parts of its legs ; so 

 evidently the species may turn cannibal on occasion. 



Meconema thalassinum, De Geer [ = 1/. variit)})] ,Fabr. — In this 

 small species we have perhaps the most delicately coloured of our 

 "grasshoppers," if such they may be called, since apparently of 

 their own free will they never leave the trees on which they dwell. 

 Probably their favourite home is the oak or the lime, but they 

 frequent other trees also. J\J. thalassinum is almost entirely pale 

 green in colour, whence, I presume, its specific name ; this tint is, 

 however, varied with pale yellow in places. It is fully winged, its 

 build is slender, and its antennae are long. Noticeable points of 

 structure are the production of the vertex into a projection in both 

 sexes, and the long incurved cerci of the male. I have not kept this 

 species in captivity, but it may safely be assumed that it feeds on 

 the leaves of the tree in which it finds shelter. On one occasion, 

 however, a pair were put into a box without food, when the female 

 was found to have eaten a great part of the male. Whether the 

 victim died first I cannot say. M. thalassimuii deposits its eggs in 

 the autumn (sometimes as late as November) by thrusting its 

 ovipositor as much as half its length into the bark of the tree on 

 which it resides,! often coming down for this purpose to within a 

 few feet of the ground. Not seldom the eggs are placed in galls of 

 Cynips kollari, from which they may be bred. 



M. thalassinum is widely distributed in Central Europe ; but in 

 the British Isles, judging by the records, its range is rather limited. 

 In England it has been noted from Devon, Somerset, Dorset, Hants 

 (very common in the New Forest), Isle of Wight, Sussex, Surrey 

 (common), Berks, Oxon, Bucks, Bedfordshire, Middlesex, Herts, 

 Kent, Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Notts, Northants, and Cambridgeshire. 

 The farthest point north is Doncaster in Yorkshire, where Mr. G. 

 T. Porritt found it commonl3^ Cornwall does not appear on the 

 list, and I have no records from Wales or Scotland. For Ireland 

 we have a record from Limerick, on the authority of Mr. S. W. 

 Kemp. This species is not averse to the neighbourhood of habita- 



* In this and other cases the records are such as are known to the author. 

 A strict search in periodicals, etc., would no doubt reveal a few others, and 

 entomologists could with the greatest ease create new ones. 



t vide " Entomologist," vol. xlv., 1912, p. 116, for a figure. 



