256 [November, 



other species tumbled into the uet, usually coiniiioii things, and were 

 at once ejected. On July 15th, I saw two specimens of Thanasimus in 

 the net, and was just on the point of turning them out when, 

 fortunately, certain differences in their appearance attracted my 

 attention, and the insects were bottled. Upon killing and mount- 

 ing these two specimens, I saw at once that while one of them was 

 the well-known T. formicarms, L., the other was an insect which 

 differed in certain important characters from that species ; but, 

 having no books with me except Canon Fowler's " Coleoptera of the 

 British Islands," the matter had to be left over for final determination 

 until oui' retvirn home. I, however, carefully bottled after this every 

 Thanasimus I beat out of the fir tops, and eventually secured five — the 

 last was taken on August 6th, by which date these cut tops had 

 become too dry for any further collecting. 



On reaching home I soon found these ins?2ts agreed in all 

 respects with the description of T. rufipes, Brahm, given by Thomson 

 in his " Skandinaviens Coleoptera," Vol. VI, p. 224, and by the other 

 authorities I consulted. Herr Reitter in the " Fauna Germanica," 

 Vol. Ill, gives on plate III an excellent illustration of this species. 



T. rujipes differs from T. formicarms by its smaller size and the 

 much finer and less dense punctuation of the head and thorax ; in 

 addition there are certain important colour differences — the whole of 

 the breast oi form icar ins is black, while in rujipes only the metasternum 

 is black (by an unfortunate slip Reitter says the breast of formicarius is 

 " entirely red," he evidently meant to write " entirely black ") ; in rujipes 

 the antennae and legs are yellowish or reddish, in formicarius they are 

 normally black ; m formicarius the elytra, with the exception of a narrow 

 red band at their base, are black, and the black portion is crossed by 

 two transverse bauds of white pubescence ; in rujipes the basal red 

 band is much wider, and in the type form the basal white transverse 

 band crosses this red portion and not the black portion of the elytra— 

 there is, however, a var., femoralis, Zett., in which the white bands are 

 arranged as they are in formicarius. 



I was stimulated to overhaul my boxes of duplicates of captures 

 at Nethy Bridge in 1910 and 1911. In the latter year we did not go 

 to our summer quarters till August, apparently too late for Thanasimus ; 

 in 1910, I found from my diary I took one specimen of a Thanasimus, 

 on July 9th, and, on examining the box of duplicates, I found it was 

 rujipes. I paid no attention to it at the time, thinking naturally it 



