1924. Notes. 67 



A Staphylinid Beetle new to Ireland. 



While collecting in Glencullen or rather the glen of the Cookstown 

 River, about a mile above Enniskerry, in Co. Wicklow, on i8th April 

 last, I discovered a large log riddled with holes about a quarter of an 

 inch in diameter. Upon the outside of the log I captured several 

 specimens of the small ant Leptothorax acervortitn Fab. and in searching 

 for more pulled off a lump of the rotten wood in which were numbers 

 of a little brownish beetle belonging to the Staphylinidae. 



Two of these beetles I brought away with me and they were identified 

 by Mr. E. O'Mahony as Bolitochara lucida Grav. Mr. J. N. Halbert 

 has since examined them and agrees with this determination. It would 

 seem that there is no Irish record for this little beetle, but on this occasion 

 I am sure I could have taken well on to a hundred had I wished to do 

 so. From one of the large burrows in the log, which was, I think, Ash, 

 I also took a male of the large rhinoceros- like beetle Sinodendron 

 cylindricum L. The ants referred to above were peculiar in not being 

 parti-coloured as is usual in L. acervorum, but were, on the contrary, 

 of a reddish-brown colour all over. 



A. W. Stelfox. 



National Museum. 



Helicella heripensis in Co. Kildare. 



In this Journal for January, 1922, I criticised the Recorder of the 

 Conchological Society of Great Britain and Ireland for definitely recording 

 H. heripensis Mabille from Ireland on the strength of two dead shells 

 taken on the " camp ground, three miles N. of Kildare " by Mr. E. 

 Stainton in 191 8. I still consider that the Recorder was taking risks; 

 but the finding of this snail, by me, abundantly in a gravel-pit near Sallins, 

 in the same county, on 21st April last, settles the matter for all time. 

 The gravel -pit is situated just south of where the Great Southern and 

 Western Railway crosses the Grand Canal, about half a mile N.E. of 

 Sallins station. Dead shells were taken very abundantly, and several 

 alive, on the face of the old gravel-pit, behind the ruins of a large building, 

 where the Glacial gravels are calcreted ; but in no other spot near at 

 hand, nor in the railway-cutting N. of the bridge could I see a trace of 

 H. heripensis, though its associates in the gravel-pit- — H. itala and H. 

 virgata — were abundant throughout the whole area searched. The only 

 problem that remains is whether the species is native or not, and neither 

 Mr. Stainton 's evidence nor mine is conclusive, one way or the other. 

 The finding of the snail on one of the untouched esker ridges of this part 

 of the central plain would, I think, be satisfactory evidence that it is 

 native. Sallins would be about ten miles N.E. of Mr. Stainton 's locality. 



A. W. Stelfox. 

 National Museum. 



