Page:VCH Norfolk 1.djvu/122

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A HISTORY OF NORFOLK projecting veins on the latter and a row of minute bead-like prominences, or some similar apparatus, situate on the thighs of the hind pair of legs. The common grasshoppers, especially the females of Stenobothrus parallelus, which may be known by their abbreviated upper wings, afford excellent examples of what is known as ' protective coloration,' the colour of the insects often exhibiting a marked similarity to that of the ground vegetation. A few stragglers of the migratory locust have from time to time been found in Norfolk ; but it may be remarked, in passing, that the ' locust ' of the country folk is Rhizotrogus solstitialis, a rather stout pale brown hairy beetle about three-fourths of an inch long, which may be seen in hundreds flying round trees and hedgerows in the summer twilight. Perhaps the best-known member of the long-horned grasshoppers {Locustida) is the great green grasshopper [Locusta viridissima). This insect is not uncommon in Norfolk, but is very intermittent in its occurrence ; it often betrays its presence by its peculiarly harsh cry. Another member of the same group {Xiphidium dor sale), a pale green insect, reddish on the back, with very slender antennae more than twice as long as the body, may be found commonly by sweeping low herbage in the fens of east Norfolk ; its female is remarkable for its large sword-shaped tail, which is nearly as long as the body of the insect. The crickets {Gryllida) are well repre- sented in this county, the house and field crickets are both abundant, and that grand insect, the mole cricket {Gryllotalpa vulgaris), will probably prove to be generally distributed if properly searched for. The name of CEcanthus pellucens has been retained in the following list because the Norfolk record is the only one of its occurrence in Britain. The record of an insect of which a single specimen only has been taken, and that, probably, some time prior to the year 1812, is neces- sarily attended with some doubt, which in the present case is some- what increased by the fact that the late Professor Westwood, who purchased the insect at the sale of Haworth's collection, said that the specimen had been misnamed, and was in no manner related to the insect in question. This statement would have been entitled to more weight had the learned professor stated what the proper name of the insect really was. I have ascertained from Professor Poulton, the present custodian of Westwood's insects at the Oxford Museum, that this specimen ex coll. Haworth cannot now be found ; and Mr. Malcolm Burr, a specialist in Orthoptera who has often been through the Orthoptera collections there, has not been more successful in his endeavours to find it. There is evidence that Haworth collected at Halvergate, where his brother-in-law Robert Scales had a farm be- tween the years 1808 and 1812 ; and the fact remains that the entomologists of his day believed that he had taken a specimen of CEcanthus there ; and as the insect had already been figured by Panzer there appears no initial reason for assuming an error of identification. On the continent the species has occurred as far north as Fontainebleau. In the following list two species which have not occurred to the 90