ffl&t <f anabian Entomologist. 



VOL. XX. LONDON, APRIL, 1888. No. 4 



NATURAL HISTORY NOTES ON COLEOPTERA.— No. 4. 



BY JOHN HAMILTON, M. D., ALLEGHENY, PA. 



Bcmbidiam undulatum, Sturm. There are now about thirty-eight 

 species of Carabidas recognized as indigenous to North America and 

 Europe, and some of them also to Asia. The most of these are arctic 

 or very northern, this being one of the few that occur in temperate 

 America, but how far northward it inhabits is unknown, as I know only 

 of its occurrence here, though in Europe and Asia it is found in sub-arctic 

 regions. Here it is taken abundantly in July and August under decaying 

 vegetation in moist alluvial places subject to occasional inundation. It is 

 a Notaphus, .20 inch long, shining, elytra obscurely rufo-piceous, paler at 

 apex with oblique pale mark, punctures of stria? obsolete behind middle 

 and surface undulated. Identical with European specimens, and also 

 verified by Dr. Horn. 



Bembidium assimilc Gyll. (frontale Lee.) is found here with the pre- 

 ceding, but much more abundantly ; I have it from Florida, and it seems 

 to occur generally eastward from the Mississippi, and also in Kansas. In 

 Europe and Asia it has the same distribution as undulatum On com- 

 parison with European specimens no point of difference has been dis- 

 covered. 



Platymis pusillus Lee. Having recently examined and compared a 

 number of Anchomoius ob/ougus Fab. from Sweden with the same number 

 of the foregoing from Massachusetts, I conclude that Dr. Horn would 

 have been entirely justifiable in pronouncing the species identical (Tr. 

 Am. Ent. Soc, ix., 142), where he writes, "the only striking difference 

 between the two being in the slightly wider thorax of our species." This 

 difference, when a number of each is examined, is observed to be merely 

 individual, and were I to write of the thorax, on the basis of a numerical 

 estimate of what is before me, the statement in the above quotation would 

 be reversed. The species has a wide distribution on this continent— Ver- 

 mont, Massachusetts, New York, Canada to Kansas. In the Eastern 



