iMo. I 233 



Eah. : S. W. England, Plymouth {J. II. Keys and Dr. Cameron). 



This species is not only very similar in appearance to the New 

 Zealand T. unicolor, but so far as I can sec is also structurally very 

 near thereto. The English insect is slightly smaller and narrower, 

 and the thorax is smaller, especially in width, and its surface is less 

 even, the basal longitudinal elevation being quite distinct. The sixth 

 abdominal segment is not so broad, and this gives rise to a difference 

 in the peculiar ciliary membrane of its hind margin ; this is more dis- 

 tinct than I have observed it to be in any other species of the 

 StaphylinidoB. The true hind margin of the dorsal plate is much 

 emarginate, and the ciliary membrane is therefore conspicuously 

 longer in the middle than it is at the sides : in the English insect this 

 emargination is slightly greater and more abrupt in the middle than 

 it is in the New Zealand species. 



Mr. Keys discovered a specimen of this insect near Plymouth on 

 April 27th in a tidal creek, and as the result of much searching secured 

 a second example on the other side of the stream about 500 yards 

 away, on a spot that at low tide is only a mud flat. This second spe- 

 cimen was found on June 2nd. In July Dr. Cameron met with two 

 specimens at another spot on this creek by shaking seaweed, and a 

 visit to the locality on August 11th by Mr. Keys and Dr. Oameron 

 resulted in the capture of about a dozen examples. The locality is 

 more inland than Plymouth Sound, and there is no foreign shipping 

 at it, neither is any ballast allowed to be put out in the neighbourhood. 

 One of the spots is near a brick-works, and the manager thereof says 

 that no foreign vessel has been in the creek for a period of at any 

 rate 40 years, and it is not believed that there is any mode of com- 

 munication between this place and New Zealand. 



TiiOGOPHLffius ZEALANDicus (Fauvel, not described), sp. n. 



A7igustus, haud depressus, nigricans, thorace plus minus piceo, elytris 

 rufis.pedihus testaceis ; thorace, pone medium, basin versus fortiter angustato, 

 omnium subtilissime punctata, medio postice angustius longitudinaliter elevate, 

 prope elevationem utrinque obsolete bi-impresso ; elytris thorace evidenter 

 longioribus, subtiliter crebre punctatis. Long., 2\ mm. 



This species belongs to the subgenus Troginus, in which the head 

 is comparatively long and narrow, and without an abrupt neck behind. 

 It is the largest insect of the subgenus known to me, being twice the 

 size of T. exiguus, the type of the subgenus ; besides this the punctu- 

 ation is coarser, the surface more shining, and the inequality of the 



