Gryllus domesticus - "is very common in bakehouses where it excavates extensive
burrows between the brickwork near the oven and increases and multiplies prodigiously".
Gryllotalpa gryllotalpa - "is very rare in the County. Two specimens have been found near
Colchester, Mr Fitch has secured two or three near Maldon and it has also been reported
from Dovercourt by Mr G.r. Mathew, and from Southend district".
Many of the species contained in Harwood's list above have found their way into the City
of Sheffield Museum as specimens, the most interesting being Platycleis grisea referred
to on the label as "Pre 1912 - north Essex coast".
It is interesting to note in the list that no mention is made of Chorthippus parallelus or
Metrioptera roeselii both now common in the County. In fact there are no references to
M. roeselii in Essex until the 1912 edition of The Entomologist (Vol XLV). Below is an
extract by Bernard Smith Harwood who was living at 62 Station Road, Colchester.
"It at once struck me that the description of this insect agreed very well with some
examples I have taken on the north Essex coast during the past few years and had
labelled Platycleis brachyptera. On comparing the specimens with the description in
Mr Burr's "British Orthoptera", the entirely pale margins of the pronotum seemed
conclusive evidence that it was really Platycleis roeselii and on my sending a specimen to
Mr W.J. Lucas, he confirmed the identification. The species seems to have been first met
with in 1903 when a single male was taken, and one or two more examples have
occurred in most years since, the largest numbers being in 1909 when four were taken.
The nymphs seem more in evidence than the adult insect, over a dozen being seen in
1909 when they were observed towards the end of June and in July - the dates for
imagines being 8th August 1904; 30th August 1909 and most recently a single male on
6th September 1911. It would therefore seem that the insect, though rare, is firmly
established on the Essex coast where it has probably occurred for many years since the
absence of wings would, as pointed out by Mr Campion, render its dispersal by migration
difficult".
The publication of the Victoria County History in 1903, heralded an era in which interest in
Orthoptera was at last beginning to develop. Although a brief article in the Essex
Naturalist Vol.Xlll - 1904 refers to a fine female example of Locusta viridissima taken
on the banks of the Thames near Purfleet in August 1903 (found once again by William
Cole), it is clear that Metrioptera roeselii was becoming the cult specimen for Essex
orthopterists at this early stage of the 20th Century. Most published material on the
subject featured M. roeselii almost to the exclusion of other species. It had been
relatively newly discovered and was thought to be something of a rarity, though many of
the leading naturalists in Essex were finding it. In the Entomologist Vol.XLV published in
April 1912, an article by W.J. Lucas (who in 1920 was to produce the most
comprehensive book of its time on British Orthoptera) tells of a Mr South taking a single
specimen of the very scarce M. roeselii at Leigh-on-Sea in August 1911. In the same
publication H. Campion from Ealing had reported a "male specimen taken at Leigh on 1st
August 1911 amongst long dry grass at the foot of a rampart that serves as sea wall in
that area". He adds "Leigh can now be added to the very few localities hitherto recorded
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