2g [February, 



those of a Nematus.'" (2) Alplna, Thorns., is {teste Konow in lift.) a 

 good species, differing from cratcer/i not only in its paler coloration 

 but in certain points of structure. I have seen the specimens called 

 alpina at South Kensington, and am not prepared to say that they do 

 not belong to that species, with the description of which they cer- 

 tainly agree at least in colour. But as I have no first-hand knowledge 

 of Thomson's species, and have seen specimens of crntcerjl (determined 

 as such by Konow), which, to the bes*^ of my recollection, were as 

 pale as the South Kensington insects, and otherwise resembled them, 

 I do not feel that I ought to tabulate alpina among the species 

 positively known to me as British. (3) Plarjiata, Klug, has long 

 been familiar to me as a continental sjiecies (Austria, Switzerland, &c.), 

 but I never saw a British specimen, and it is not recorded by Thomson 

 from Scandinavia. Herr Konow tells me it is pretty widely distri- 

 buted in Central Europe, but more particularly in its southern parts. 

 In recording it from Weybridge, Mr. Cameron himself speaks doubt- 

 fully as to its distinctness from craice(ji, from which he separates it 

 only by small colour-chni'acters, which are certainly quite unreliable. 

 As I have myself taken specimens of cratcegi in the Weybridge dis- 

 trict, coloured in accordance with Mr. Cameron's description of 

 plagiata, I feel pretty sure that plagiala, C, is not King's species. 

 The reti\ plagiata is to be identified, not so much by its colour, as by 

 certain points of structure. The excision of its clypeus is more 

 angular (less rounded) than that in cratcegi, and it has a very deep and 

 conspicuous fovea on its " frons " between the antennae, whereas in 

 cratcegi, though a corresponding fovea exists, it is much shallower 

 and often hardly noticeable. 



I may say that while cratcegi in our southern counties is a very 

 common and a very variable species, it seems to be rare in the North. 

 (Only one specimen represents it in the Cameron Coll.). Hence it 

 would not be surprising if some of its extreme aberrations should 

 have been referred by Mr. Cameron to other species, owing to the 

 absence in his district of the intermediate forms with which we are 

 here (in Surrey, Hants, Sussex, &c.) so familiar. 



{To be continued). 



