438 TEE ZOOLOGIST. 



soil mixed with sand or clay, and therefore that its presence may be 

 regarded as somewhat local, does not define its range in this country, 

 nor give any localities where it is indigenous, or generally to be found. 

 As far as this county of Stafford is concerned, the Mole-Cricket, being 

 apparently a southern insect, is only very casually referred to by 

 Garner in his ' Natural History of the County of Stafford' (1844), as 

 " taken in gardens about Birmingham," but he gives no actual data. 

 Edwin Brown ('Fauna of Burton-on- Trent,' 1863) does not refer to 

 this insect at all in his list of the Orthoptera of the district. I have 

 only myself during the last thirty years been able to obtain particulars 

 of two records of the occurrence of the Mole- Cricket in Staffordshire — 

 once in 1898, when one was found in a stove-house in the gardens of 

 Meaford Hall, near Stone (Rep. North Staff. Field Club, vol. xxxii. 

 p. 64), and again on Sept. 14th last, when a specimen was found by a 

 workman at the Longton Corporation Gasworks. Mr. B. Bryan, of 

 Normacot, who showed me this insect, stated that it was discovered 

 during the unloading of a truck of "oxide," a substance used in puri- 

 fying gas, and brought from Ireland. Both these specimens would 

 appear to have been introduced into this country, the Meaford speci- 

 men no doubt coming with roots of plants or garden material from the 

 south, and the Longton specimen no doubt flew into the oxide whilst 

 in transit on the railway, and probably when passing through some 

 part of Wales, where the Mole-Cricket frequently occurs. As far as I 

 have been able to ascertain, this insect is not indigenous to this 

 county, which is further north than its normal range, as to which I 

 shall be glad to receive further information from any readers of ' The 

 Zoologist.' — John R. B. Masefield (Rosehill, Cheadle, Staffordshire). 



[Mr. M. Burr, in his ' British Orthoptera,' writes of this species : — 

 " In this country the Mole-Cricket is local, being found chiefly in the 

 south. Stephens gives Devon, Cornwall, and Ripley. It is to be found 

 in the New Forest, near the Chichester Canal, and at Besselsleigh, in 

 Berkshire." — Ed.] 



LOCAL NOMENCLATIVE. 

 Some Local Names in Surrey. — " Son of the Marshes," in his 

 ' Surrey Hills,' mentions the name " Deaf Adder," as applied to the 

 Slowworm. I have often heard the term used by country people round 

 Reigate and Newdigate. The epithet "deaf" is more curious than 

 " blind," applied to the Slowworm with its comparatively incon- 

 spicuous eyes, and I can only suggest the explanation of its use by 

 the rustics as a term vaguely reminiscent of Sunday School. In the 

 same volume the author speaks of the Short-tailed Field- Vole as being 



