‘ FIELD NOTES FROM SALONIKA. I. 191 
they are so nimble that it is difficult to catch them without a net; 
they take two or three long bounds of five or six feet in length, and 
laugh at attempts to catch them with the fingers; but they are fond of 
sitting on top of a thistle or bit of succory, chirping with a rather loud 
and persistent stridulation ; if carefully approached it is not very difti- 
cult to catch them with a rapid and sweeping stroke. I saw one bounce 
on to a male (eles, roll him over in spite of his vigorons kicking, stand 
across him, and bury his powerful mandibles in his sternum ; Celes 
continued to kick spasmodieally till his sternum was nearly eaten away; 
when disturbed, the Gampsocleis made off in two or three bounds, 
carrying his relatively bulky prey with him; the ruling passion is 
strong in death; one, on being plunged into a tube of alcohol, seized 
the nearest object, which was the leg of his predecessor in the tube, 
and never let go. Another day I placed a tinful of Orthoptera in the 
sun to dry; almost instantly a Gampsocleis strolled round the corner, 
walked up to the box, and quietly gripped a dead grasshopper in his 
jaws, and made off with him. 
Other Decticids occurring in the same loeality are Decticus verruct- 
vorus, L., on the higher ground, and D. albifrons, Fabr., on the lower ; 
the latter seems a somewhat smaller race than those which I have 
taken in other districts in the Mediterranean provinces. One or two 
species of Platycleis, of the P. yrisea group, which I cannot name with- 
out books, and on the flat, a small, pale, brachypterous species with 
short curved ovipositor, of the P. tesselatus group, are common, but the 
latter maturing rather late in June. One other Decticid common 
enough on the flat, and not mature before the end of June, has a 
characteristic coloration; it is of a general pale grey, with a very per- 
sistent black spot on the upper surface of the posterior femora near the 
base, bright red-brown jaws, with black frons, and a rather long, 
straight ovipositor. 
On June 29th, in a little gulch near the camp, we found numbers 
of Nemoptera coa. This is an elegant creature, fluttering feebly from 
plant to plant, his long tail-like hindwings trailing behind like balan- 
cers. Ant-lions, too, are weak on the wing; the big black and buff 
Palpares libelluloides flaps about on the plain commonly enough, and a 
small, plainly coloured species comes to light in the tents every even- 
ing, and can be easily picked up in the fingers. Ascalaphus is much 
stronger on the wing; I have taken three species here, two with plain 
wings, and one handsome black and yellow species, which I think is A. 
kolyvanensis. These hover and fly with a dash, and require some 
catching, even with a butterfly net. The third species has hyaline 
wings with one dark spot. 
On May 29th, my friend Captain Powell, who constantly helped me 
in the field, brought me a female Dinarchus dasypus, which he had found 
cowering under some scrub. A little later we took two more, both 
males, and kept them alive for a long time. They make quite enter- 
taining pets; I have described them in another note; but we did not 
find any more for a long time, although we kept a sharp ear open for 
their loud and characteristic song, and it was not until July 8rd that 
any more were found, when some R.A.M.C. friends came across a 
colony of them. m 
Another interesting creature that was about in June was a fat, 
brachypterous Gidipodid, which [ think is Glyphanus. 
