126 ENTOMOLOGICAL NOTES FOE 1864. 



reduced fully one-half over the district in the vicinity of New- 

 castle. Long before the beans came to maturity they began to 

 turn black in patches, which might be noticed from a considerable 

 distance, and on a closer examination, these patches were found 

 to consist of plants which had been killed by the Aphis. One 

 field, of near twenty acres, which I carefully examined, showed 

 a most astounding amount of insect life. ISTot one stem was clear 

 of the Aphis, whilst some had hundreds, nay, thousands, of the 

 pest upon them ; and these were sucked as dry as a piece of wood, 

 were as black as ink, and had not one full pod of beans upon 

 them. "When the bean fields of a whole country produce such 

 hosts as are here noted, and when these take wing in still 

 warm days in autumn, they form those astonishing clouds of 

 " Cholera flies" which carry dismay into many minds, who look 

 upon them as the forerunners of pestilence and death. Cabbages 

 in gardens were this year a good deal covered by a mealy looking 

 species, {Aphis Irassicce, Linn., Koch, 1. c. 149, figs. 203, 204,) 

 which clustered by thousands on the under side of the leaves. 

 Many other plants and trees swarmed with their own particular 

 species, but enough has already been said on a not very attractive 

 class, and we will dismiss the Aphides, remarking, however, that 

 numerous also were their enemies : birds, beetles, bugs, the larva? 

 of flies, spiders, mites, and other things, finding a plentiful supply 

 of food amongst them. I often found the larva of a fly, most 

 likely Scteva Pyrastri, amongst the cabbage Aphis, in which they 

 made regular lanes, eating directly forward and through the 

 closely packed masses by which they were often completely 

 covered. 



In many of the other orders of insects a great paucity of num- 

 bers may be noted ; Coleoptera (beetles) were far from abundant, 

 those species which feed on plants being more particularly rare, 

 and many of them did not appear until after the rain, which fell 

 towards the middle of September. However, a few additions to 

 the fauna have been made, and these, with the permission of the 

 Club, I will enumerate in another communication. 



Earwigs and grasshoppers have again become numerous, and 

 the merry chink of the latter was heard all along our sea-banks 



