190B.] iij 



the light coloured tops of the high grass, but the objectiou to this 

 was that it iiieaut a dash up the slope for twenty or thirty yards, often 

 only to lose sight of the insect when one got up to it. Considering 

 it was something like S7° in the shade on the day in question this was 

 most exhausting work. Eventually nine specimens were captured, 

 but quite as many as this must have escaped after being sighted. On 

 passing the hill side in the afternoon 1 did not see a single example, 

 and the next afternoon I only saw two, so that probably the species is 

 practically a morning flier. 



On examining these specimens carefully I found they differed in 

 several respects from R. sohtitialis, and answered to Canon Fowler's 

 somewhat meagre description of i?. ochraceiis. However, I had great 

 difficulty in confirming this identification until Messrs. Donisthorpe 

 ? 'd Chitty most kindly helped me, and I have now compared my 

 insects with several foreign examples of R. ochraceus and one of Dr. 

 Sharp's from Cornwall. All those captured by me have proved on 

 dissection to be males. On the continent R. ochraceus is regarded as 

 a variety of R. solsti/inlis, but I think the above description of its 

 habits abundantly proves that this is not the case, even if the struc- 

 tural differences between the two forms were much less marked It 

 is true that several of the continental Rhizotror/i, like various species 

 of Oeotrupes, sometimes fly by day, as well as at dusk ; but R. solsti- 

 tialis is such a very common insect that this habit could hardly have 

 been overlooked, it being almost always found flying, generally high 

 up, round trees. 



Structurally, R. ochraceus seems to be very constant, differing 

 from R. sohtitialis in the following particulars : — it is on an average 

 distinctly smaller and less hairy, and has more slender legs ; the 

 elytra have no or a very few extremely short hairs on the disc, and 

 are bordered with rather short stiff dark bristles, whereas in R. solsti- 

 tialis they arc clothed with scanty, long, light coloured pubescence, 

 and are bordered with hairs of the same nature ; the pygidium is 

 finely punctured, but somewhat rough, instead of being strongly 

 granulose, and is covered with much shorter pubescence than in R. 

 sohtitialis ; the ^ has the club of the antennae only half the length 

 of that of the same sex of R. sohtitialis. It seems quite possible that 

 we have a third species of the genus in Britain, as specimens in one or 

 two collections standing under the name R. ochraceus do not appear 

 to be correctly identified. 



Bradfield : December Uh, 1904. 



