1000.] 11 



all doubt was dispelled ; tliere was then no mistake as to the caudal horn, though 

 still terminated with several forked black bristles. Eventually they became like the 

 larvae I was finding later in the same locality, and in due course produced the 

 imago. The above facts are more striking, as no such diiJerence is observed between 

 the young and half grown larva of S,.fuciformis. How will students of ontogeny 

 account for this .'— W. R. Jeffket, 37, Bank Street, Ashford : Nov. 13th, 1899. 



Dinarda dentata : a reminiscence. — The identification of the British examples by 

 Father Wasmann, as quoted by Mr. Champion in the December No., will, as he says, 

 interest British Coleopterists, but the account of the locality and capture in the 

 "Annual" is inexact. One day in September, 1863, Scott and I, after hunting for 

 Hemiptera on the heathor-clad Addington Hills, arrived at Shirley, on the marginal 

 slope thereof, where there was an old deep sandpit with some water in it, into which 

 beetles and other insects had fallen. Scott went into this pit, and I went forward on 

 to the level ground beyond. There I saw a quantity of Formica sanguinea running 

 close together in one direction, and side by side with them, in nearly equal number, Di- 

 narda dentata ; the progress of many of the latter I soon stopped ; Scott then came 

 up and took many prisoners. We saw no nest. The assemblage looked like an excur- 

 sion from one — a mutual reconnaissance in force — in search of fresh camping ground, 

 but neither in nor in the direction of " the Archbishop's Wood, near Croydon." 



This is the true account of the first finding of Dinarda dentata, called "the 

 Croydon insect," and though the correction is late in coming, it may yet serve 

 collectors to find the locality, which though altered by lapse of time, may possibly 

 still possess enough descendants of the first Dinardce to satisfy them. Mr. Keys, 

 of Plymouth, wrote to me that in September, 1885, Dinarda dentata was found by 

 him in some numbers actually running amongst ants — a blackish species (and there- 

 fore not J^. sanguinea) — in their colony beneath a stone on the grassy slope in front 

 of the sea at Whitsand Bay. —J. W. Douglas, 39, Craven Park Eoad, Harlesden, 

 N.W. : December 2th, 1899. 



Phytosus spinifer at Scarborough. — During an afternoon visit to Scarborough 

 on August 3Jst I spent an hour or two in searching for Coleoptera beneath seaweed 

 at the base of the cliffs to the south of the town. The only species present in any 

 numbers was Cajius xantholoma. One specimen of Phytosus spinifer was taken, 

 together with single examples of Ocypus morio, Stilicus affinis, and Aleochara 

 ohscurella.—J. Haeold Bailey, 128, Broad Street, Pendleton : December 7th, 1899. 



Homalota puherula, Sharp, and other Coleoptera at Chesham. — A considerable 

 number oi Homalota puberida. Sharp, were swept from long grass at the edge of a 

 wood in this district by myself during the afternoon of September 21st ; the only 

 previous capture hereabouts being one specimen found near Tring in dead leaves 

 last autumn. While searching early in October for H. clavigera, Scriba, I turned 

 up a couple of H. validiuscula, Kr. Of S. planifrons. Sharp, I have one example 

 (a $ ) taken here by sweeping early in the summer. The undermentioned Coleoptera 

 I have also taken in this district during the past summer : — Homalota perexigua, 

 Sharp, and M. pilosiventris, Thorns., under a dead rabbit, H. villosula, Kr., in refuse, 

 H. orphana, Er. (1), by sweeping, and H. pruinosa, Kr. — this species has I fear been 



