202 [September. 



hottest and driest part of tlie summer (end of July and August). 

 Some of those from Kent and Sussex agree well with the description 

 of iV! Jlava and represent a bright reddish insect with the marking 

 on the thorax reduced to a pair of fine black lines — the line looking as 

 if drawn with a fine drawing pen. Two bright though not extreme 

 forms were, however, taken far north in Scotland (Thurso and Brora) 

 near sea level in August. The darker forms either appear early in the 

 season (April and May at Tarringtou and Hay), or else come from 

 places of considerable altitude, or higher latitude, e.g., Eannoch, Avie- 

 niore, Forres, &c. This phenomenon may be similar to that known to 

 exist in the genus Dryomyza (belonging to the Sciomyzidce) in which 

 genus D. Jlaveola and *Z>. Zawadskii have been shown by Girschner 

 and Mik to be seasonal forms of one species. In England D. Jlaveola 

 appears to occur in the summer months while D. Zawadskii is on the 

 wing in the late autumn (October and November). In the B. M. 

 Collection are several specimens of the latter form taken by Mr. 

 Piffard during the months of October and November, 1894<. 



ANCHOMENUS QUADRIPUNCTATUS, T)e G^^^n, COT^'ElRM.^iy AS 



BRITISH. 



Br G. C. CHAMPION, F.Z.S. 



This species, included in our fauna on the authority of a single 

 specimen taken by the late T. J. Bold, at Long Benton, Newcastle- 

 on-Tyne, in his " Catalogue of the Insects of Northumberland and 

 Durham (184S)," has long since been relegated to the list of doubt- 

 ful British Coleoptera. It must, however, be reinstated, as I captured 

 an example of it on August 11th, from under loose pine-bark, in a 

 shady place, in a wood near here.f Dawson (Greodephaga Britannica, 

 p. 90, t. 1, fig. E.) describes and figures Bold's specimen, and states 

 that it is the only one he has seen. No reliance can be placed upon 

 Stephens's earlier records of it : the Ancliomenus (Ar/onum) quadri- 

 puncfatus of the "Illustrations" (Mand. i, p. 90, t. 5, fig. 1), is 

 probably a variety of A. moestus, Duft , and that of the "Manual," 

 A.fuliginosiis, Panz. 



In its small size and extreme agility, A. quadripuncfatus has, 



* Dr. Meade was apparently unaware of the existence of these specimens or of the writmgs 

 of Girschner and Mik on the identity of the two forms when he wrote his paper (Ent. Mo Mag , 

 May, 1S99, p. 102) on unrecorded British Diptera. 



+ Since these remarks have been in type I have found many specimens of the insect in the 

 same spot, beneath the fallen pine-needles on the ground, in a comparatively dry place, where 

 there was an abundance of I'ki/saiiura, upon which the Anchomenus probably feeds. It may be 

 noted that a heath fire had iiassed over the place a year or two ago, and the ground was much 

 charred.— G. C. C. 



