202 THE entomologist's record, 



some forty pupae of my hybrids, only these three produced imagines, 

 all the rest dying, probably through over-forcing. I have compared 

 the butterflies with the P. poly.rcnes in the National Collection, and 

 though they at first sight seemed to have more yellow on their hind- 

 wings than was the case with the P. pob/.renes, I succeeded in finding 

 some specimens of the latter which resembled exactly my hybrids, 

 which in every respect are unlike P. machaon. I kept one of the three 

 butterflies alive for some days in my butterfly-house, and it paired 

 readily with a fine $ P. machaon (second brood). Alas! the P. machaon 

 was drowned the next night in a thunderstorm. The fact of the 

 pairing, however, may be significant, as, both in 1909 and in 1910, I 

 have been unsuccessful in continuing my experiment, and have failed 

 totally in getting either <? polyxenea x $ machaon, or ^ macJiaon x 

 $ polygenes. Last summer, however, I succeeded in getting a pairing 

 between ^ P. machaon and $ JamniadeA ylaucus, which wdS normal as 

 far as duration was concerned. All the ova laid, however, proved 

 infertile. 



Coleoptera at Braemar in June. 



By H. St. J. K. DONISTHORPE, F.E.S., F.Z.S. 



On June 8th I left London to spend ten days at Braemar in search 

 of beetles. My colleague, Professor Beare, met me at Aberdeen, as he 

 was able to join me for a few days before he had to be at Oxford. 

 After an early breakfast we continued our journey, the last stage of 

 which consisted of a twenty mile ride in a motor. 



Fortunately the weather was fine during the whole of my stay with 

 the exception of one wet day, a remarkable thing in such a bad year. 

 The results of the trip were also very satisfactory and I added a number 

 of rare and interesting insects to my collection. 



The chief object of our visit was to try and find Elaphrus lapponiciis, 

 and after a long hunt on Mount Morrone, we located a spot. This 

 consisted of a large area of Sphaf/nuin, sloping down towards the top of 

 a waterfall about 2300 feet above sea-level. Through this water was 

 running, the whole place being wet. Having removed our boots and 

 socks we waded about in the thick wet Sphagnum and soon found the 

 beetle. It comes up in the sunshine, runs about in the sun for a 

 short time, then disappears again. Several hours' work produced a 

 nice series each of this beautiful beetle. Its colours range from 

 copper, bronze, crimson, and steel colour to nearly black. Our feet 

 got sunburnt with the exposure to the sun and were very painful next 

 day. I paid another visit to this place before I left and found that the 

 spot was spoilt. I was told by two men who were digging in the 

 Sphagnum that it was the town water supply. They cut the water off 

 from the plateau and carried it off in ditches at the sides and quite 

 dried up the Sphagnum. I only saw one single Elaphrus, which looked 

 very like a fish out of water, as it crawled slowly away. I took a fine 

 specimen of the rare Amara alpina near this spot. Other mountain 

 species taken were Harpalus 4:-p>mctatus, common, Harpalus latus var. 

 erythrocephalus, Cymhidis vaporariorum, Carabus glabratus, Patrobu$ 

 septentrionis, and Miscodera arctica under stones. Anchowenvs ericeti 

 was found on thick patches of pink Sphagnum at the foot of the 

 mountain, a variable series of this brilliant insect being taken. Like 



