Roebuck : Locusts in Yorkshire. 



135 



•a very large one in point of numbers, but probably more widely and 

 generally distributed in the Briiisb Isles than is usually the case. 



The Yorkshire records in my possession number about half of all 

 the specimens which were actually chronicled for the whole kingdom. 



One was captured during the last week of August, on the grass- 

 plot before the Huddersfield Infirmary (D. E. Brown, Ent. W. Int., 

 Sep. 19, 1857, ii. 197). Only a week before this occurrence some 

 boys had shown Mr, Brown one, which they said had come from Africa 

 in a bale of wool (loc. cit.) One was taken on the 23rd August, in a 

 garden at Ripon by a lady (Edward Morton, Ent. W. Int.^ Sep. 19, 

 1857, ii., 198 ; J. Hazledine Tutin, loc. cit.) One was taken near 

 Malton on the 27th August (Jonathan Orde, Ent. W. Int.^ Sep. 12, 

 1857, ii. 190), one in a house in Halifax the other day," that is, some 

 time in September {Family Friend, xix., 134). Mr. Edward Morton 

 •<{Ent. W. Int., Sep. 19, 1857, ii. 198) believed " several other locusts 

 have been taken in Yorkshire duxing the present summer." 



Now for other records : the first appears to have been at Stow- 

 market August 22nd (0. K. Bree) ; three occurred at Newhaven, in 

 Sussex, Sep. 7th ; one at Walton Heath, Surrey, Sept. 2nd ; two :at 

 Hove, near Brighton, about the 18th of September ; and one at 

 Southampton. When scientific names are given, it is Gryllus migra- 

 toruis in every case. Three specimens of Acrida vhidissima are placei 

 •on record as having occurred on the Sussex coast, two miles from 

 Chichester, September 6th ; it is quite possible that this may have 

 been a mistake as to the name, and that the individuals so recorded 

 were locusts. 



These records appeared almost simultaneously, and then the 

 publication of them was summarily stopped. The number of the 

 Entomologists' Weekly Intelligencer for Oct. 10, 1857 (iii. 9), con- 

 taining not a single record whatever, but instead thereof a leading 

 -article, from which I take the following extract : — 



" Locusts, — So numerous have been the communications we have 

 Teceived announcing the ;capture of specimens of Gryllus migratorius^ 

 that we have been obliged to desist from publishing them. Though 

 the comet has not come, the locusts have ; several hundreds appear 

 to have been captured, and no doubt many more have escaped 

 detection. They have not been confined to the south-eastorn part of 

 our island, but have been also met with in the north and west, York- 

 shire has distinguished itself specially as a locust-detecting county, 

 some have occurred in Scotland, and Devonshire and even Ireland 



