Page:VCH Norfolk 1.djvu/196

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A HISTORY OF NORFOLK of the body ; its antenns are very short and inconspicuous, but its mode of carrying its forelegs is such that the latter have much the appearance of antennas. It may be dredged from the bottom of the water at HickHng Broad and elsewhere, but it is by no means easy to see when mixed up in the water-net with broken and decayed pieces of sedge and other rubbish, as it is very deliberate in its movements. The Homoptera are divided into three sections. The Trimera, the first of these, has three joints to the feet, and comprises the various fanylies of jumping-bugs proper (Cicadina). The members of the second section, the Dimera, have but two joints to the feet : this section contains the Psyllidce, small insects having somewhat the facies of a Cicada in miniature ; the plant-lice {Aphidce) ; and the Akurodidce. The latter are very minute insects with four milk-white wings, and are excessively abun- dant on cabbage. The third section, the Monomera, in which the feet are formed of a single joint, contains only the scale-insects [Coccidce). The Cicadina are particularly well represented in Norfolk, the propor- tion occurring in the county being 78 per cent, of the number known to occur in the British Islands. These insects are for the most part small, and with the exception of the cuckoo-spit frog hopper {Philcenus spumarms), and some of the yellow species of Typhlocyba, small, delicate, cylindrical insects which frequently get blown on to one's clothing from trees and fences in the fall of the year, none of them are very likely to be seen unless searched for. The patches of froth in which the nymph of P. spumarius lives are conspicuous objects on various low plants, and the perfect insects are remarkable for the variety of colour patterns which they exhibit ; some of these varieties show simply variation in degree, but others, such as the entirely black and the entirely pale forms, those black with a pale head, black with a pale border to the upper wings, etc., are perfectly distinct in appearance and might well be considered by a non-entomological observer to belong to different species. Tettigonia viridis is a strikingly beautiful insect which occurs in profusion amongst 1q,w plants 'growing in damp places ; the male is about one-third of an inch long, and has the upper wings of a rich deep blue ; the female is a little larger and of a delicate pale green colour closely resembling that of the lower part of the stems of the grasses and rushes amongst which the insect lives. The capture of jumping-bugs uninjured for the collection is really quite a sporting business, the chances of escape being at least, ten to one in favour of the insect ; this is more especially the case with those species which live near the roots of herbage in marshes and by the sides of ditches, as these tiny animals have a provoking habit, even when they do not at first jump quite away, of retiring to the opposite side of the stem on which they are perched on the approach of the would-be captor's hand ; and of the species that can be got into the sweeping or beating-net only a comparatively small portion find their way into the collector's killing bottle, owing to the extreme activity of his temporary captives. 164