152 HAMPSHIRE DAYS 



insect's song, but duller. We may, indeed, say that 

 this grasshopper's sounding instrument is glass; it is 

 a shining talc-like disc, which may be seen with the 

 unaided sight by raising the elytra. 



Some time ago, in glancing through some copies 

 of Newman's monthly Entomologist, 1836, I came 

 upon an account of a numerous colony of the great 

 green grasshopper, which the writer found by chance 

 at a spot on the Cornish coast. The effect produced 

 by the stridulating of a large number of these insects 

 was very curious. I envied the old insect-hunter his 

 experience. A colony of viridissima what a happi- 

 ness it would be to discover such a thing! And 

 now, late in the summer of 1902, I have found one, 

 and though a very thinly populated one compared 

 to his, it has given me a long-coveted opportunity 

 of watching and listening to the little green people 

 to my heart's content. 



The happy spot was in Harewood Forest, a dense 

 oak-wood covering an area of about two thousand acres, 

 a few miles from Andover. I had haunted it for some 

 days, finding little wild life to interest ine except the 

 jays, which seemed to be the principal inhabitants. In 

 the middle of this forest or wood, among the oak trees 

 there stands a tall handsome granite cross about thirty 

 feet high, placed to mark the exact spot, known as 

 " Deadman's Plack," where over nine centuries ago 

 King Edgar, with his own hand, slew his friend and 

 favourite, Earl Athelwold. The account which history 



