1916.] 131 



NOTES ON THE COLEOPTEBA OF CROWTHORNE 

 (A PARISH OF BERKSHIRE). 



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



{Concluded from page 89). 



Of the great Clavicorn series - apart from tlie Paljjicornia, of 

 course — we have many interesting species. Among the Brachelytra there 

 are probably far more than have been recorded ; the nests of the two 

 ants, Formica rtifa and Donisiliorpea (Lasius) fuliginosa, both of which 

 are frequent, furnish between them most of the British myrmecophilous 

 Stajjhylinidae known to exist, but such other contingent species as are 

 associated with " Cossus trees " and moles' nests are absent, because 

 the forest land is quite impossible for moles, and there are very few of 

 the deciduous trees such as the goat-moth affects. However, round 

 the muddy margins of meres and streams, occur many species of 

 Tachyum, Atheta, Stenus, Trogophloeus, etc., while the district remains, 

 I believe, one of the few localities in these islands where Bledius 

 femoralis G-yll. can be taken with certainty. This species occurs in sandy 

 hollows near water, and in a similar locality I took B. fracticornis Payk. 

 in some numbers this year. The vast abundance of fungi of all kinds 

 supplies all the commoner fungivorous beetles, and under bark Cory- 

 phium angusticoUe occurs rarely with various more frequent Homalia. 

 Other captures perhaps worth mention are Callicerus rigidicornis, 

 Gyrophaena bihamata, Deinopsis erosa, Medon obsoletus, and Stenus 

 hipiinctatv.s. 



It was, perhaps, the capture of various of our rarer species of 

 Liodidae, including especially Triarthron mdrkeli, which first brought 

 " Wellington College " under the notice of Coleopterists ; and here 

 these species still occur, although, as I have remarked, in varying 

 quantities and proportions each year. Possibly the presence, or at 

 least the frequency, of many of them may have been made possible by 

 the advent of the pines, and certainly these are responsible for the vast 

 numbers of Coccinellidae which abound throughout the year. Other- 

 wise not much of note can be recorded. 



The numerous species of the less common Clavicornia, which such 

 woodlands as those of Sherwood and the New Forest (Ytene) maintain, 

 depending as they do on the aged and decaying oaks and beeches of 

 those forests, are necessarily absent from a district in which such 

 sylvan features are not found. Then also the lack of the dung of 

 herbivorous domestic animals owing to the deficiency of pasture, or of 



