394 Mr. J. Walton on the genus Apion. 



Hitherto this insect has occurred but very sparingly, and may 

 be regarded as somewhat rare ; Mr. S. Stevens found it in the 

 autumn amongst grass in Arundel Park ; also at Charlton, Dor- 

 king, and Birch Wood, but rarely ; I cannot recollect having taken 

 it more than once, and then but a few specimens, at Mickleham 

 in Surrey, the beginning of October : it appears to be confined to 

 chalky and sandy districts. 



60. A. ebeninum (Gyll. in Litt.), Kirb., GylL, Germ., Steph., 

 Schonh. 

 — Kunzei, Schonh. 



I forwarded to Schonherr foar specimens of this insect, and 

 he reported of them as follows : — " Ap. ebeninum, Kirby (i. p. 288. 

 n. 89.) non idem Ghl. — Kunzei Schh. v. p. 419. n. 128. idem spe- 

 cies.^^ " Patria Lipsise A. Dom. Kunze.'^ From this opinion I 

 was induced to think that we had two closely allied species, 

 namely Ap. ebeninum of Gyllenhal and Ap. Kunzei of Schonherr, 

 and that I had mistaken Ap. ebeninum of Kirby, or that the latter 

 author had described a Swedish species which was unknown as 

 British, and had erroneously placed two indigenous specimens in 

 his collection as identical therewith. It appears from a catalogue 

 of Swedish insects, dated the 6th of September 1805, in the 

 handwriting of Major Gyllenhal, now in the possession of the 

 Entomological Society, that Mr. Kirby originally received from 

 him an insect with the manuscript name of Ap. ebeninum, which 

 he described under that name, and refers to " Mus. Dom. Gyl- 

 lenhal,^' giving the habitat in ^' Suecia. Anglia,'' and records the 

 capture of British examples near Great Blakenham in the middle 

 of July 1806, after which he adds an observation, " The male has 

 the rostrum shorter and more robust.^' The Swedish typical spe- 

 cimen in Mr. Kirby's collection, indicated by having number 34 

 fixed to the pin, is unfortunately mutilated ; the head and thorax 

 are wanting ; it is therefore useless for the purposes of comparison 

 and elucidation, but it corroborates the evidence that Mr. Kirby's 

 description of Ap. ebeninum was drawn from this insect ; there 

 are two Kirbian specimens with the above-named type, one of 

 which has a male symbol fixed to the pin, which is doubtless the 

 specimen characterized above. Gyllenhal subsequently described 

 this species before he had seen Kirby's description ; but their 

 descriptions of the sculpture do not agree : the part of the head 

 between the eyes is described by Kirby as not being very con- 

 spicuously striated, with some of the strise punctulated ; by Gyl- 

 lenhal, the frons between the eyes as being very minutely punc- 

 tured : the thorax is described by the former as distinctly punc- 

 tured with a deep furrow before the scutellum, which in some is 

 very much broader and deeper ; by the latter author, as sparingly 



