THE AQUATIC COLEOPTERA OF THE NORTH EBUDES 157 



dark unspotted variety often found in highland streams, but 

 one with a fair amount of yellow marking such as is common 

 in lowland streams in the south of Scotland. 



Although Hydroporus rivalis was common in the Broad- 

 ford River, H. septentrionalis was not to be found, and the 

 peculiar vagaries of these two species as to their distribution 

 is a mystery. 1 At present I have no record in Scotland for 

 the latter species north of Dumbarton, Perth S., and Clack- 

 mannan and Fife except Aberdeen S., Easterness, Elgin, 

 and Ebudes Mid. It is recorded for almost all the southern 

 Scottish counties, and probably occurs in all the northern 

 English ones, though the records are only for Cumberland, 

 Northumberland S., Durham, Yorks N.E. and Mid W., and 

 Lanes Mid and S., and the only other English records are for 

 Chester, Salop, Hereford and Devon S., with an outlying one in 

 Leicester. In Ireland the records are at present all for coastal 

 counties, its distribution being what Praeger has termed mar- 

 ginal. 2 There is therefore either a great deal to be discovered 

 or a great deal to be accounted for in its distribution. 



Agabus congener had been previously recorded for Skye 

 (W. A. Forbes), but in my experience it was rare, as I only 

 took two or three specimens in a Sphagnum pool on the 

 lower slopes of Beinn na Caillich, where a single specimen of 

 Ilybius cznescens, the only one I saw in Skye, also occurred. 

 A few specimens of Paracymus nigrocenens turned up on Eigg, 

 but the species was evidently scarcer than in the Mid Ebudes. 3 

 Ot-//iebius/ejo/istia\so,a\thoughdiff\cu\t enough tofind at Oban, 3 

 and on Coll, 3 was infinitely more so on Eigg, where, after an 

 hour's search, I found one imago and one larva, and another 

 half-hour failed to discover any more. While waiting for the 

 steamer at Mallaig (Inverness W.) I spent half an hour on 

 the rocks just to seaward of the fish-curing buildings and 

 found a single specimen there also. I did not attempt to find 

 the species in Skye, though it is probably to be found there. 



(To be continued.} 



1 Vide also ' The Aquatic Coleopteraof the Isle of Man ' on this point, " The 

 Naturalist," 19 1 1. 



- ' On Types of Distribution in the Irish Flora,' R. H. Praeger, " Proc. 

 Roy. Irish Acad." xxiv. Sect. B. 1902. 



3 'The Aquatic Coleoptera of the Mid Ebudes,' "Ann. Scott. Nat. Hist.," 

 April 1910, p. 79. 



