lor; I November, 



and alao below where the small round black spiracles occur ; the belly 

 and legs are of the same semi-pellucid pale watery greenish tint as the 

 head ; the tubercular warts have a small green central eminence 

 emitting a fine hair : on tlie front of the third and fourth segments on 

 either side is a velvety hlacJc spot ; a few individuals occur, in which 

 these spots are almost obsolete or absent on the fourth segment : the 

 skin on the head and on the plate of the second segment is like shining 

 glass, but on all the rest of the body it is like ground (jJ ass. 



When full-fed, the details of colouring fade gradually away, and 

 the larva changes to a ^;ff/e finh 7iz<e, and then spias itself up in a 

 cocoon of whitish silk, which soon turns rather brown. 

 Emsworth : October 1th, 1876. 



A new habitat of Velleius dilatatus. — In the "Petites Nouvelles Entomologiques" 

 of August 15th, is the following note by M. Viturat, which may be of service to En^ 

 glish Coleoptci'ists. 



" During nearly ten years that I have given attention to Coleoptera, I have, 

 on every practicable occasion, sought, but in vain, in the nests of wasps and hornets 

 for Velleius dilatatus, which aU entomological works state lives exclusively with these 

 Hymenoptera ; but, on the 27th July, I found a whole family of this species in the 

 trunk of a tree. This was an oak, with a hollow of about two decimetres diameter, 

 situate half a metre above the ground, which appeared to have been the abode of 

 squirrels or rats during the winter, and was filled with the excrement of these 

 animals, and fine black earth arising from the decomposition of the wood. The tree 

 did not appear to have been inhabited by hornets, at least, for a long time, judging 

 by the aspect of its interior ; when I examined it, I first saw a Velleius, which I 

 thoxight was Staphylinus olens, and which ran out of sight ; I then took out a handful 

 of the matter which was in the tree, without paying any particular attention to its 

 contents, when I found that I was bitten, until blood came, by a Velleius dilatatus, 

 which, notwithstanding its small mandibles, grips harder than the above-named 

 Staphylinus. Having been thus brought to notice the cause of my wound, I carefully 

 collected for examination, with all the avidity of an ardent naturalist, all the debris 

 which remained in the interior of the trunk, and my labour was fully recompensed 

 by the capture of five other examples of Velleius ; hence I conclude that these insects 

 do not live exclusively with Hymenoptera, and that the search for them in places like 

 that I have mentioned might help to diminish their rarity." 



I may add, that at least two examples of Velleius dilatatus were taken in 

 this country by the late diaries Turner, in the burrows of Cossus Ugniperda in a 

 tree (E. M. M., iii, 96), and the connection of the beetle with Cossus-trces has of 

 course long been known to French collectors.. — J. W. Dofglas, Lee : September 

 l\th, 1876. 



[I once took more than a dozen of the allied Quedius truncicola at Mickleham, 

 in a rotten tree, as above described. On habits and economy of Velleius, see A. 

 Ebuget, Mem. Ac. Dijon, 3me. serie, i, pp. 201-^29.— E. C. R.] 



