86 [^prfi. 



colour. An example from Vienna (coll. Champion ex Reitter) has the 

 elytra entirely of a deep black colour. The aedeagus is remarkable on 

 account of its short broad form ; unfortunately I have been able to 

 examine it in only a single and immature specimen. 



There has been great confusion as to the name of this species, 

 owing to mistakes made by Mulsaut and Rey. Marsham's description 

 of " a large, dark, common mark on the elytra, in which dark mark 

 are placed two pale spots," agrees well with specimens of the insect 

 in which the anterior marks are rather indefinite, and is not applicable 

 to any other British Heloplwrus. Add to this that Stephens (who 

 acquired Marsham's collection) described and figured H. dorsalis, 

 and that his dorsalis is certainly the species under consideration, it 

 must be admitted that there is no doubt as to this name. Mulsant 

 appears to have at first identified the insect with the species I have 

 below named H. iUustris, while subsequently it was confused with 

 H. mulsanti q.v. 



I can say but little as to the distribution of the species, as I have 

 seen but few examples, and the records appear to be not trustworthy. 

 A specimen from East Siberia (Irkutsk, coll. Fry) appears to be 

 certainly H. dorsalis. 



(To he continued.) 



NOTES ON THE COLEOPTERA OF CROWTHOENE 



(A PAEISH OF BEEKSHIRE). 



BY W. E. SHARP, F.E.S. 



The village, or rather settlement, of Crowthorne, for it owes its 

 quite recent origin to the immediate proximity of a large Government 

 institution on one side, and that of a well-known public school on the 

 other, lies so closely in the south-eastern angle of the county of Berks, 

 that from its centre a walk of some three miles southward will take 

 one into Hampshire, while westward, Surrey lies not more than five 

 miles distant. 



The cottages and small houses which form the nucleus of this 

 village, lie enveloped by the wide- spread woods of Scots pine of what was 

 once the Royal Park of Windsor. The soil of the whole region is that 

 soft grey sand known to geologists as the " Bagshot beds," one of the 

 components of our Eocene Tertiary, as ill suited for agriculture as it is 

 good for Coleoptera. Northward these sandy beds run nearly to the 



