142 The Irish Naturalist. 



peculiar look about these insects which renders them un- 

 mistakable after being once seen. Probably their food con- 

 sists of the small, or immature sandhoppers, which rise up in a 

 cloud from beneath these masses of tangled Fuais when they 

 are moved. 



Proceeding onward along the shore, we cannot but notice 

 those unfamiliar rocks which run out in points and masses 

 opposite I^ambay island. Had we at that time read Professor 

 Cole's series of articles which have appeared in The Irish 

 Nattcralist, in "Co. Dublin Past and Present," we should have 

 examined these rocks with more curiosity, and looked out for 

 some of the silicified fossils, the brachiopods, gastropods, and 

 the rest, which the Professor describes as occurring along this 

 part of the coast; as it was, with undiscerning eye, and to 

 avoid the wet and contorted surface which those interesting 

 Ordovicians present, we left the actual beach, and mounting 

 the low cliff, continued our way by a path through the meadows 

 which there border the shore. Scattered along by the side of 

 this track were many boulders and fragments of stone. These 

 being inverted, disclosed a few beetles, mostly, however, 

 valueless. There were the common Philojithics varius, P. 

 polittis and P. marginat^ts; a Quedius or two, such as Q. tristis 

 and Q. molochifius ; Lathrobrium fulvipenne, and Xa7itholi?ucs 

 linearis. These one finds everywhere, but this shining brown 

 Silpha, which tumbles into the cavity exposed by the uplift- 

 ing of one of our stones, one does not find ever3^where. In 

 fact, this is the first insect which tells us that we are in Ire- 

 land, and nowhere else. The thing is generally described as a 

 variety of Silpha atrata, under the name subrotundata, and to 

 the present writer is a beetle of considerable interest. It 

 differs so materially from the t3^pe-form common in England, 

 that there seems no good reason to deny to it the rank of a 

 separate .species. That is to say, the two differ not only in 

 colour (which is comparatively unimportant), but also in 

 structure, and there are among the Geodephaga many diffe- 

 rences apparently smaller and less distinct, which are held 

 to divide true species, such are Notiophilus biguttatus and 

 N. S2cbstriat2ts, Nebria brevicollis, and A^. gyllenhali, Bembidium 

 tibiale and B- at7vccerzileiiin. Again, there are no connecting 

 links so far in evidence between S. atrata and 6*. subrottmdata, 

 although, perhaps, the var. bntnnea, found amongst the Welsh 



I 



