256 WALTON ON THR GENIUS APION. 



of June and the beginning of August. Apion Betulce would 

 have been a more appropriate name. 



Apioji bifoveolatmn, and its synonyme A. elongatum, must be 

 expunged from my list: it is precisely the same insect as 

 A. Meliloti, of Kirby. In the months of July, August, and 

 September last I captured some hundreds of this very rare 

 insect from the Melilot-Trefoil, or Trifolium officinale. 



Apion confluens. — On the II th of June last, at Mickleham, 

 I captured this rare species in great plenty, by sweeping the 

 meadows in the park behind the church. 



Apion picicornis, and A. difforme. — On the 1st of October 

 following, by brushing the herbage at the sides of the hedges 

 in the last-mentioned park, I obtained plenty of the first, and 

 about forty specimens of A. difforme^ of both sexes ; the latter 

 gave me an opportunity of detecting an error in my last com- 

 munication. Amongst several species of this genus, given to 

 me by an eminent entomologist of London, I had one named 

 Apion ruficrus, with the anterior coxae and trochanters densely 

 black ; and it agreed well with two others which I had 

 previously taken at Chigwell, in Essex. In the absence of the 

 sexes of A. difforme, which I did not then possess, they ap- 

 peared to me a good species, and I wrote from memory on 

 their analogy to the female of the latter species, whereas they 

 were actually the same ; I now find there is not a distinct 

 species, in any of the London cabinets that I have seen, with 

 the name of A. ruficrus. Mr. Stephens has given it in his 

 systematic catalogue as an uncertain or doubtful species ; the 

 fact is, it is not a species. 



When A. Spartii, A, hifoveolatum, and A. ruficrus are ex- 

 punged from the list, it will contain sixty-six species, whereof 

 five are undescribed, viz. A. rubens, A. sanguineum^ A.stolidum, 

 A. picicornis, and A. puncticollis ; these five, with three new 

 ones in the cabinets of Mr. Curtis, my own, and Mr. Water- 

 house, will shortly be described by the latter gentleman, which 

 will add as many as I have struck out, so that it will remain 

 for the present at sixty-nine species. There are still three or 

 four doubtful ones, and I hope at some future period to con- 

 firm them. Mr. Spence, of Hull, very politely allowed 

 me to search his father's cabinet for A. glahrahmi, but I 

 was unsuccessful ; his insects are all numbered and without 



' See Gyllenhall's Insecta Suecica, IV. p. 543. 



