Roebuck : Locusts in Yoekshire. 



131 



more or less subject to inroads by myriads of locusts, apparently 

 bending a course towards the south ; and then stated that a few days 

 before, a cloud of them settled temporarily near Spurn Point, and 

 that about the same time several stragglers were taken alive at 

 Cleethorpes. On the 8th September one was taken at Patrington, 

 and three oil the 10th at Easington, about five miles from Spurn 

 Point. One of the three was deposited in the British Museum. Mr. 

 Sherwood, visiting Spurn Point on the 29th September, found, from 

 the quantity of dead specimens kept by the villagers, as well as from 

 their accounts, that the newspapers had by no means exaggerated 

 the numbers of these insects (Wm. Sherwood : Zool., 1846, v. 1678-9). 

 One occurred at Hessle, near Hull (E. Peacock, Zool., 1847, vi. 2000). 



Such are the Yorkshire records for 1846 : let us now turn our 

 attention to those recorded from other parts of the kingdom. 



About the second week of August it is recorded that a large flight 

 of locusts passed over Sunderland ; they hovered in the neighbour- 

 hood of Hendon, and numbers alighted on the hedges there, till, a 

 crowd beginning to collect, they took flight towards the south, 

 appearing to conduct their migration in close company ; several were 

 caught {Zool: 1846, v. 1678). One occurred at Marsden, near New- 

 castle-on-Tyne, Sept. 11, one at Newcastle, another at Marsden, and 

 one at Linten, near Morpeth. Further south we have our Yorkshire 

 records, coast examples predominating. Then we hear of a few 

 stragglers at Louth, in Lincolnshire, in the beginning of September, 

 of flights near Cromer, and near Yarmouth, in Norfolk, and of 

 numerous instances of single pairs in that county. At Chelmsford, 

 in Essex, were reported two specimens. Again we hear of them 

 abundantly along the coast of Kent, about Margate. 



All these instances, it will be observed, are from localities upon 

 the east coast, and that in some cases the reports speak of large 

 numbers, amountiag to flights, especially at Sunderland, about Spurn 

 Point, on the Norfolk Coast, and at Margate. 



Further inland we find that one was reported early in September 

 by Mr. Henry Doubleday, at Epping, and that the London district 

 yielded a large number of single occurrences, at Camberwell, Peckham 

 Rye, Hyde Park, Kingsbury, Stanmore Marsh, Islington, Waltham- 

 stow, Highgate, Richmond, Hammersmith, &c. No doubt the reason 

 for so many occurrences round London is the same that causes the 

 London District to be so prolific in new and rare species of insects in 

 all orders, namely, the fact of there being so many qualified entomo- 



