A HISTORY OF NORFOLK 



of the body ; its antennae are very short and inconspicuous, but its mode 

 of carrying its forelegs is such that the latter have much the appearance of 

 antennas. It may be dredged from the bottom of the water at Hickling 

 Broad and elsewhere, but it is by no means easy to see when mixed up 

 in the water-net with broken and decayed pieces of sedge and other 

 rubbish, as it is very deliberate in its movements. 



The Homoptera are divided into three sections. The Trimera, the 

 first of these, has three joints to the feet, and comprises the various 

 families of jumping-bugs proper {Cicadind). The members of the second 

 section, the Dimera, have but two joints to the feet : this section contains 

 the Psyllidce, small insects having somewhat the facies of a Cicada in 

 miniature ; the plant-lice {Aphidce) ; and the Aleurodidce. The latter are 

 very minute insects with four milk-white wings, and are excessively abun- 

 dant on cabbage. The third section, the Monomera, in which the feet 

 are formed of a single joint, contains only the scale-insects {Coccida). 

 The Cicadina are particularly well represented in Norfolk, the propor- 

 tion occurring in the county being 78 per cent, of the number known 

 to occur in the British Islands. These insects are for the most part 

 small, and with the exception of the cuckoo-spit frog hopper [Philoenus 

 spumarius), and some of the yellow species of Typhlocyba, small, delicate, 

 cylindrical insects which frequently get blown on to one's clothing from 

 trees and fences in the fall of the year, none of them are very likely to 

 be seen unless searched for. The patches of froth in which the nymph 

 of P. spumarius lives are conspicuous objects on various low plants, and 

 the perfect insects are remarkable for the variety of colour patterns which 

 they exhibit ; some of these varieties show simply variation in degree, 

 but others, such as the entirely black and the entirely pale forms, those 

 black with a pale head, black with a pale border to the upper wings, 

 etc., are perfectly distinct in appearance and might well be considered by 

 a non-entomological observer to belong to different species. Tettigonia 

 viridis is a strikingly beautiful insect which occurs in profusion amongst 

 low plants growing in damp places ; the male is about one-third of an 

 inch long, and has the upper wings of a rich deep blue ; the female is a 

 little larger and of a delicate pale green colour closely resembling that of 

 the lower part of the stems of the grasses and rushes amongst which the 

 insect lives. The capture of jumping-bugs uninjured for the collection 

 is really quite a sporting business, the chances of escape being at least ten 

 to one in favour of the insect ; this is more especially the case with those 

 species which live near the roots of herbage in marshes and by the sides 

 of ditches, as these tiny animals have a provoking habit, even when 

 they do not at first jump quite away, of retiring to the opposite side of 

 the stem on which they are perched on the approach of the would-be 

 captor's hand ; and of the species that can be got into the sweeping or 

 beating-net only a comparatively small portion find their way into the 

 collector's killing bottle, owing to the extreme activity of his temporary 

 captives. 



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