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Show 198 MESSRS. BRUNNER AND REDTENBACHER ON [Mar. 15, rule greatest, it may be that the restricted range is in their case specially unfavourable. The genus Schistocerca includes two of the six species of St.-Vincent Acridiodea ; and this genus is remarkable as comprising one of the few migratory locusts that at times devastate regions of the Old World ; the genus is, however, specially an American one and it is supposed that the S. peregrina, 01.-the migratory locust I a m speaking of-is an American insect that made its way to Africa. It is worthy of note that it is not this Schistocerca with great powers of flight and self-distribution that is found in St. Vincent, but two other species, one of which has a wide distribution in the Antilles and in the continental lands adjacent, while the other has been hitherto only found in Cuba, Haiti, and Jamaica, so that both are endemic species of the region in which St. Vincent is situated. The Orthopterous fauna of St. Vincent appears to point out that it is not powers of locomotion that have established certain species in the island and excluded others, for the earwigs, which are remarkable from their very feeble powers of flight, are proportionally better represented in the fauna than the Acridiodea, whose powers of locomotion are notoriously great. Of the nineteen species appearing at present peculiar to the island eleven are apterous, and only eight winged species. It must not, however, be taken for granted that these nineteen species will ultimately prove to be absolutely limited to the island of St. Vincent. W e may indeed feel pretty sure that some of them will be found in the neighbouring islands, and until these have been explored it would be premature to attach much importance to the fact that the majority of the species peculiar to the island are incapable of flight. It should also be remarked in reference to these nineteen species that most of them appear to be extremely rare, indeed in the case of seven of them only a single specimen of each has been obtained. The most remarkable of these Orthoptera is Diapherodes gigas, the female of which is a gigantic apterous insect, 7 or 8 inches in length. Another of the most interesting of the Orthoptera of the island is the Cyrtophyllus crepitans; this is one of the singing Locustidae, allied to the N . American " Katydids," and is provided with a powerful musical apparatus. The most abundaut Orthopteron appears to be Orphula punctata; this is a comparatively small insect, extremely similar to the Stenobothri that are so numerous in our European fields and commons ; it has, however, no stridulating organ. The common earwig of the island appears to be Anisolabis janeirensis. (D. S.) |
