LOCUSTS IN YOEKSHIEE : 

 with special reference to the flight of i 876. 



By Wm. Dekeson Roebuck. 



(Bead before the Huddersfield ScientiHc Club, February 9th, 1877. y) 



The occurrence last autumn of a small flight of locusts, which 

 seemed to have been almost entirely confined to Yorkshire, and of 

 which several examples fell under my own observation, suggested to 

 me the desirability of collecting information with regard to them, and 

 of having some of the specimens authoritatively and correctly named. 

 No sooner had I undertaken to prepare a paper upon this subject for 

 the Naturalist, than it seemed desirable to complete the account by 

 including notices of all such flights as I could ascertain to have been 

 observed in this county in previous years, for it seemed to me that 

 more light would be thrown on the probable direction and line of 

 migration of one flight by a comparison of its distribution with that 

 of previously recorded occurrences, than by viewing the occurrence as 

 an isolated phenomenon. Still further consideration induced me also 

 to notice, more briefly, the distribution of locust-flights throughout the 

 kingdom at large. Previously to the establishment of the Annals and 

 Magazine of Natural History and of the Zoologist, very scanty records 

 are available for the study of locust-flights, and this circumstance 

 proves the utility of natural history journals appearing at frequent 

 intervals as vehicles for the recording of facts and occurrences which 

 would otherwise be permitted to sink into oblivion. 



1842. 



Consequently the first visitation of locusts in England of which 

 anything like a satisfactory record is preserved is that of 1842, 

 reported in the 2nd vol. of the Zoologist for 1844, and the 1st vol. of 

 the Annals. To take the Yorkshire specimens first : Mr. Henry 

 Denny (^nn. and Mag. Nat. Hist., Oct., 1842, x. 158) record^sd that 

 " last week " (writing Sep. 15) a fine specimen of Locusta Christil was 

 brought to Leeds in a waggon of lead from Pateley Bridge. For the 

 name he refers to Curtis's figure and description. Mr. Denny further 

 reported the capture of three locusts " last week " at Scarborough, on 

 the authority of the Scarborough Herald. One was reported in the 

 Sheffield Mercury of the 10th Sept., taken in that town (Edwin 



N. S., Vol. ii.— Apk., 1877. 



