Insects. 117 



his collection during the months of winter. It is of an excursion of 

 this kind during the Christmas holidays that 1 am about to write. I 

 was spending mine at York ; the season had been unusually severe, 

 with much snow, and being succeeded by mild weather, a rapid thaw 

 was produced : this in the level round York soon caused a widely ex- 

 tended flood. Mr. Henry Baines, who is now the subcurator of the 

 Yorkshire Philosophical Society, and myself, having hired a boat for 

 the purpose, set out, our intention being to procure some of the rejecta- 

 menta brought down by the river. We were soon on a waste of wa- 

 ters, nothing being visible over a wide expanse, except the tops of the 

 hedge-rows and a few wild-ducks, which took care to keep out of the 

 range of our guns, with which we were also provided. We had a re- 

 gular steeple-chase, and had often to put our boat to its speed to avoid 

 sticking in the hedges which we topped. 



After a long and novel row we found a large quantity of rejecta- 

 menta, which the eddying stream of the river had forced out of the 

 current into a corner. It was composed of very small bits of stick, 

 straw and grass, and we could see, as we filled it into a sack, that it 

 was perfectly alive with beetles. We left it till the following day to 

 allow the water to drain off; and though we had seen something of 

 tihe multitude of insects the day before, we were not prepared for the 

 sight that awaited us next morning. The outside of the poke was 

 covered many deep with beetles which had forced their way through 

 the sackcloth. They were in tens of thousands, and when swept off 

 filled a large basin. The inside was alike swarming with life, and a 

 large portion of its contents — and it held two or three bushels — was 

 composed of Coleoptera, showing how vast — how enormous must be 

 the waste of life during a widely extended flood. Amongst such my- 

 riads we expected to secure some good things, but in these our ex- 

 pectations we were disappointed ; they were limited to a few genera 

 — Haltica, Apion, Stenus, and hosts of Staphylinidae. We had how- 

 ever the satisfaction of thinking that we had more than atoned for all the 

 insect murders we had previously committed, by now rescuing so ma- 

 ny insect lives from drowning.— W^. C. Hewitson; Bristol, Feb, 1843. 



Description of several Species of the Genus Phyllium. 

 By George Robert Gray, Esq. 

 Having examined various specimens of those interesting and curi- 

 ous insects denominated walking leaves {Phyllium, Latreille) through 



