132 



The Naturalist. 



I'ogists resident in and about the metropolis. Yet it is to be noted 

 that in spite of there being so many single records, in no instance is 

 mention made of flights or swarms near London, as on the coast. 

 About Cambridge they occurred at Fulborne and Duxford. In the 

 county of Leicester several are noted, including one at Skeffington 

 and a pair at Leicester ; and in the neighbouriug county of Rutland, 

 one at Uppingham. One at Lenton, near Nottingham ; and in the 

 county of Worcester several during September. The north-vs^estern 

 counties produced one specimen only, in the city of Manchester, 

 Sept. 4th ; Wales only showed one, at the Nash Lighthouse, county 

 of Glamorgan ; and the southern counties one, at Bembridge, Isle of 

 Wight, in August. The south-western counties, Devon and Corn- 

 wall, seemed, however, to represent another centre of distribution, 

 for single specimens were reported from Dawlish and Exmouth, in 

 Devon ; and in Cornwall from East Looe, St. Just, and Penzance, 

 while vague mention is made of " others " within a short distance of 

 the Land's End. 



There are no records whatever of locusts in Ireland in 1846, and 

 the Scottish ones are rather vague. The Stirling Observer speaks of 

 flights of Egyptian locusts in various parts of Scotland, one of them 

 being preserved alive in the Edinburgh Zoological Gardens. In the 

 Zoologist (lS4i6, lY. 1521), the Rev. George Gordon stated that the 

 newspapers reported them to have been seen in Sutherlandshire and 

 further north, though he seemed to have little confidence in the 

 reliability of those accounts. 



Commenting upon the evidence which I have just summarised, 

 the most obvious remark which can be made is that the visitation 

 was most decidedly eastern in its distribution, thus pointing to 

 immigration from the European continent. All the mentions of 

 flights or of swarms, in fact of any considerable numbers, are from 

 localities upon or near the east coast. In like manner, the single 

 occurrences, though scattered over the midland counties, betray a 

 decidedly eastern tendency, a tendency which is not neutralised by 

 the' occurrence of solitary stragglers at Manchester, Worcester, 

 Glamorgan, Devon, and Cornwall. 



It is to me a subject of regret that so few dates are published — so 

 few that we are not able to ascertain whether the coast occurrences 

 had any sort of priority in time. 



With regard to the name, there seems to be a good deal of uncer- 

 tainty : most observers are unable to speak of anything but 

 *^ locusts" : but it may be noticed that the insects are recorded sts 



