on Leyton and Wanstead Flats supports two very local species, the treehopper Gargara genistae and
the lacebug Dictyonota fuliginosa. The plant hopper Oliarus panzeri has been recorded from grassland
at the margins of woodland in the south. It is particularly associated with ground which is moist in
the winter and which dries and cracks open in the summer. The nymphs feed on plant roots. Some of
the dry grassland species not recently recorded from the Forest may yet be found in these more open
southern areas.
Three further species recorded from the Forest deserve brief consideration. The green shieldbug,
Palomena prasina, though a common insect in many southern English counties, is extremely local in
Essex. There are a number of records from various parts of the Forest from 1976 to 1985. It has
otherwise been recorded from the county in recent years only on the chalk at Grays. The small black
plant bug Pachytomella parallela was added to the British list on the basis of a single male taken in
the Forest at Loughton by E. A. Butler in 1922. This fact is remarkable chiefly because the bug is
primarily a northern species, more or less common over quite a large area of northern England and
Scotland. In the south-east it is extremely rare. No more specimens have been seen in the Forest, but
the bug has reappeared in the county at Grays in recent years. Nymphs of the grassbug Stenodema
holsatum were recorded from the Forest by E. A. Butler in 1917. This is the only Essex record for this
species, which is chiefly northern and western in distribution. In the south-east it is probably confined
to the shelter of woodlands. The New Forest cicada, Cicadetta montana, is a great rarity in Britain,
currently known only from the New Forest, Hampshire. There are well authenticated records of the
insect from Surrey in the last century. There is a record of the cicada from Epping Forest in a
manuscript of about 1845 in the Oxford University Museum. The record is reported by Morley (1941)
in a review of the records of the species in Britain. Morley declared that this record "must be
erroneous", but it is not obvious why he should have done so. In the early part of the 19th century
Epping Forest must have contained very much the sort of habitat that the cicada now favours in the
New Forest. It is unlikely that the truth will ever now be established. Though the cicada is surprisingly
easy to overlook in view of its size and the fact that it sings, it is unlikely that it would have gone
unnoticed for so long if it were still present, and equally unlikely that it would have survived the long
period of neglect that the Forest has suffered.
Table 1 is a list of species recorded from the Forest.
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