186 [August, 



On going to Brockenhurst. last Jmie I showed the insect to 

 Dr. Sharp, who has kindly gone very fully into the matter for me, and 

 who has just had a NotiopJiilus sent him by Col. Yerbury, taken in 

 Sutherlandshire this summer, which corresponds with mine. According 

 to him it is apparently a rare mountain form, and it is of interest to 

 note that Thomson in his " Skandanaviens Coleoptera," Vol. I, p. 182, 

 mentions as var. c. of aquaticus, a form which appaerntly corresponds 

 to these Scotch examples. 



Peebles: July, 1912 



NOTE ON THE ACBITUS MINUTUS, Hbst., AND A. NIGBICORNIS, 

 HoFFM., OF BEITISH COLLECTIONS. 



BY JAMES EDWARDS, F.E.S. 



These two species are given as British in the Beare-Donisthorpe 

 Catalogue of 1904. According to the current definitions, as given in 

 the few Continental beetle books at my command, the following, inter 

 alia, are their index characters inter se. 



Pronotum without a transverse row of punctures near the base. Habitat under 

 bark and in rotten wood (according to one writer, generally with ants) 



...minutus, Hbst. 

 Pronotum with a slightly impressed transverse sinuovis row of punctures near 

 the base. Habitat in decaying vegetable matter 7iigricornis, Hoffm. 



In a manure heap here, I get an Acritus which is evidently nigri- 

 cornis as defined above ; but this is also the same as a specimen of 

 minutiis which I bought of E. W. Janson many years ago under that 

 name. Wishing to see minutus proper, which according to Fowler is 

 common and generally distributed, I applied to several correspondents 

 for an Acritus of that name having no row of punctures near the base 

 of the pronotum and subcortical in habitat : no one has it. 

 Mr. Champion's minutus are all like the one I had from Janson, and so 

 are forty-seven specimens of so-called minutus kindly lent to me hy 

 Mr. Donisthorpe. As long ago as 1862 these two species were clearly 

 diagnosed by Thomson, but they remain inade(|uately distinguished in 

 our English text-books ; the chai'acters given in Cox's Handbook are 

 inacciirate, and in Col. Brit. Isl., the correct diagnoses are so modified 

 that they become worthless. I am ixnable to find any evidence that the 

 real A. minutus, Hbst., has ever occurred in this country ; indeed, the 

 evidence on the subject, such as it is, indicates rather that the 

 A. minntus of British authors and collections has always been 

 A. nigricornis. 



Colesborne, Cheltenham : 

 June 22nd, 1912. 



