A HISTORY OF NORFOLK 



projecting veins on the latter and a row of minute bead-like prominences, 

 or some similar apparatus, situate on the thighs of the hind pair of legs. 

 The common grasshoppers, especially the females of Stembothrus parallelus^ 

 which may be known by their abbreviated upper wings, afford excellent 

 examples of what is known as ' protective coloration,' the colour of 

 the insects often exhibiting a marked similarity to that of the ground 

 vegetation. A few stragglers of the migratory locust have from time 

 to time been found in Norfolk ; but it may be remarked, in passing, 

 that the ' locust ' of the country folk is Rhizotrogus solstitialis, a rather 

 stout pale brown hairy beetle about three-fourths of an inch long, 

 which may be seen in hundreds flying round trees and hedgerows 

 in the summer twilight. Perhaps the best-known member of the 

 long-horned grasshoppers {Locustidce) is the great green grasshopper 

 {Locusta viridissima). This insect is not uncommon in Norfolk, but is 

 very intermittent in its occurrence ; it often betrays its presence 

 by its peculiarly harsh cry. Another member of the same group 

 (Xiphidium dorsale), a pale green insect, reddish on the back, with very 

 slender antennae more than twice as long as the body, may be found 

 commonly by sweeping low herbage in the fens of east Norfolk ; its 

 female is remarkable for its large sword-shaped tail, which is nearly as 

 long as the body of the insect. The crickets {Gryllidce) are well repre- 

 sented in this county, the house and field crickets are both abundant, 

 and that grand insect, the mole cricket {Gryllotalpa vulgaris), will 

 probably prove to be generally distributed if properly searched for. 



The name of CEcanthus pellucens has been retained in the following 

 list because the Norfolk record is the only one of its occurrence in Britain. 

 The record of an insect of which a single specimen only has been 

 taken, and that, probably, some time prior to the year 1812, is neces- 

 sarily attended with some doubt, which in the present case is some- 

 what increased by the fact that the late Professor Westwood, who 

 purchased the insect at the sale of Haworth's collection, said that the 

 specimen had been misnamed, and was in no manner related to the 

 insect in question. This statement would have been entitled to more 

 weight had the learned professor stated what the proper name of 

 the insect really was. I have ascertained from Professor Poulton, 

 the present custodian of Westwood's insects at the Oxford Museum, 

 that this specimen ex coll. Haworth cannot now be found ; and Mr. 

 Malcolm Burr, a specialist in Orthoptera who has often been through 

 the Orthoptera collections there, has not been more successful in his 

 endeavours to find it. There is evidence that Haworth collected 

 at Halvergate, where his brother-in-law Robert Scales had a farm be- 

 tween the years 1808 and 1812 ; and the fact remains that the 

 entomologists of his day believed that he had taken a specimen of 

 CEcanthus there ; and as the insect had already been figured by Panzer 

 there appears no initial reason for assuming an error of identification. 

 On the continent the species has occurred as far north as Fontainebleau. 



In the following list two species which have not occurred to the 

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