136 fJuiie, 



Gyllc'iihal, in his " Insecta Succica," vol. i, p. 205 (1S08), gives a 

 full and accurate description of a species of this genus, which he 

 states to be Marsham's hicoJor, but there is little doubt that he never 

 saw any of Marsham's types, and from this mistake of Gyllenhal has 

 arisen the whole confusion. Gyllenhal's description fits accurately 

 the insect we are dealing with, and in most of the European w^orks 

 up to the present the species has been ascribed to him, as the first 

 author to give a true and recognisable description. 



Stephens, in his " Illustrations of British Entomology (Mandi- 

 bulata)," iii, p, 89 (1827-35), copied Gyllenhal's description, and 

 thus made it appear that he had taken steps to confirm Gyllenhal's 

 supposition that his bicolor was INlarsham's, but he did nothing of the 

 kind. All three specimens in the Stephens' collection, as was pointed 

 out by Mr. G. H. Waterhouse* in his Catalogue of British Goleoptera 

 (1861), were incorrectly named, two being cenea,f and one lacordairei, 

 and it is the neglect by some of the Continental authorities of the 

 clear and explicit statement of Mr. Waterhouse, which has perpetu- 

 ated right up to the present the confusion in the synonymy of 

 this insect. 



Lacordaire, in his " Monograph of the Erotylidse " (1842), deals 

 with the genus Triplax on pages 202 to 218. He ascribes bicolor (p. 

 215) to Gyllenhal, and states that Marsham's and Stephens' bicolor 

 were synonymous with it ; he evidently followed Gyllenhal in this 

 matter. 



Bedel, in " L'Abeille," for 1868-9, Vol. v, p. 1, published a Mono- 

 graph of the Erotylidce of Europe, North Africa, and Western Asia. 

 In this monograph he ascribes Marsham's and Stephens' bicolor to 

 cenea, Schall., but in the synonymy of bicolor, GylL, he brings in 

 again Stephens' bicolor in part, and he considers Charpentier's scutel- 

 laris, taken in Hungary, and described in Horae Ent. Eoss. (1825), p. 

 244), to be merely a variety of Gyllenhal's bicolor. Lacordaire had 

 retained Charpentier's insect as a distinct species. In the same 

 volume of " L'Abeille," p. 136, M. Bedel published three notes of cor- 

 rections on his monograph, and in the second note refers to Mr. 

 Waterhouse's examination of the Stephensian specimens of the genus 

 Triplax. He says that Mr. Waterhouse had stated, in an article 

 published in the Transactions of the Entomological Society of London, 

 3rd series, 1862-64, p. 129, that of the three insects standing under 

 the name of bicolor in the Stephens collection two were cenea (and 



* At the request of Frof. Hudson Beare, Mr. C. O. Waterhouse kindly re-examined these 

 three specimens, and he absolutely confirms their identification with nnea and lacordairei. 



+ Stephens says (I. c), " I possess a pair from Marsham's collection, and 1 once beat a single 

 example from a birch tree in Coombe Wood in June. 



