138 



THE ENTOMOLOGIST S RECORD. 



captured by Mr. Wallace-Kew, in a nest of Mi/rmica laevinodh, Nyl., 

 var. nif/inoilo-loevhiodis, For., under a large stone at Countisbury near 

 Lynmouth in Devonshire, in October 1912, who kindly presented them 

 to me. Father Wasmann determines them as this variety ; the speci- 

 mens are very large, measuring 5mm. in length. 



Notes on the indentity of the Dermaptera described by Thunberg» 



By MALCOLM BUER, D.Sc, F.L.S., F.Z.S., F.E.S. 



In the Nova Acta Eegiae Societatis Scientiarum npsaliensis, vol. ix.^ 

 p. 52, 1827, Carl Peter Thunberg described a few Dermaptera, under 

 the title Coleoptera capensia. The descriptions are exceedingly brief^ 

 and it is by no means clear to what species they are to be referred. 



Being unable to go to Upsala to see the original specimens, I wrote 

 to Professor A. Wiren, who exceedingly kindly sent me all the earwigs 

 of Thunberg that are in the Museum. 



I was at once disappointed to see no South African specimens in 

 the box ; indeed, only two of the specimens appear to be referred to, 

 and these are two of Fabricius' species. 



Thunberg refers to them in the following terms : — 



F. flexuosa : forfice flexuosa, elytris biguttatis. Forficula Hexuosa, Fabr., 

 Entom. Syst., i., 2, p. 5. 



F. dentata : forfice basi dentata arcuata, fusca, thoracis marginibus pedibusqu& 

 pallidis. 



Forficula dentata : Fabric, Entom. Syst., i., 2, p. 5. 



The specimen labelled "flexuosa" is an ordinary macrolabious 

 specimen of Forficula auricidaria, L. The elytra are rather pale, but 

 scarcely " bi[/ii.ttatln;" it cannot be the ffexaosa of Fabricius, which de 

 Bormans suggested is Psalis percheron ; probably he was right, as 

 Fabricius' description agrees very well with P. percheron, and this 

 specimen came from Cayenne. 



The specimen labelled ''dentata " has lost the abdomen and forceps^ 

 but there is no mistaking the extremely characteristic head, pronotvim, 

 elytra and wings of a male Auchenomm javaniis, Borm. This must 

 surely be a misidentification on the part of Thunberg. Fabricius' 

 dentata is certainly synonymous with F. auricidaria ; the description and 

 the type, which is in the Banksian collection in the British Museum,, 

 leave no doubt that this long-established synonymy is perfectly correct, 

 and Thunberg's specimen merely misidentified. 



From the absence of any African material, it would seem that the 

 types must be lost, probably by Thunberg himself, after his return from 

 Africa in 1775, but before the publication of the paper in 1825, as it 

 does not seem likely that any should be lost since he presented his 

 material to the Upsala Museum. Very probably the two Fabrician 

 species are included in the " (hleoptera capensia " in genuine error by 

 Thunberg, who may be pardoned a certain forgetfulness after a lapse 

 of half-a-century. But it means that we are thrown back to guesswork 

 in attempting to identify his three species. 



I offer the following suggestions on the assumption that he was 

 dealing with common African species : — 

 --^ F. marginalis: fusca, thoracis margine postico pedibusque pallidis; forfice 



