78 [April. 



RE-DISCOVERY OF " STEONGYLOGASTER SHARn" Cameron, IN THE 

 NORTH OF ENGLAND. 



BY THE BEV. P. D. MORICE, M.A., E.Z.S., F.E.S. 



More than 10 years ago — in August 1S79 — tlie late Peter Cameron 

 described in tliis Magazine Sf/-oiif/i//o(/iffi/f'r sJ/arpi, a SawHj' new not 

 only to Britain but to science, from specimens ( $ $ onl}') which had 

 been met with l)y himself and Dr. Sharp while sweeping ferns at 

 Crickshope Linn, near Thornhill, Dumfriesshire. Two of these sjK^ci- 

 mens — or, rather, one of them, which is Uibclled 1)y the author as his 

 type, and a headless renniant of another — are now in thd National 

 Collections at S. Kensington. Hut no other capture of the species has 

 ever been recorded, and botli Ivonow (in "Genera Insectorum") and 

 Dr. Enslin (in " Tenthredinoidea Mitteleuropas ") have sunk it — 

 certainly {juite wi-ongly — as a synon^'m of Taxonus albij^es Thomson 

 (= T.Jh'tcheri Cam.). 



At last, lu)wever, the insect has re-appeared, not in Scotland, but in 

 the North of England! Mr. A. D. Peacock of Armstrong College, 

 Newcastle-on-Tyne, lately sent to me for determination a few SawHies 

 taken l)y liimsclf at various localities in the Tyne district, aniong whieh 

 I was surprised and jdeased to see a $ (somewhat damaged, but perfectly 

 recognizal)le) of the long-lost species. It was labelled " 1914. 11 (?)," 

 Avhieh ]\Ir. Peacock explains to mean that he took it " before the war. 

 in some district between Blanchland, liuffside (both on the Durham- 

 Northumberland border), and Kothbury (mid-Northumberland), Euff- 

 side (=1y. of my label) being the most probable." I have photographed 

 the Avings and other characteristic featvires of the specimen, and it is 

 Avell that I did so, for the specimen has since been broken to pieces 

 through rough handling in the post. However, it is to be hoped that 

 in the coming season Mr. Peacock may succeed in repeating the ca])ture, 

 and possibly also in detecting the still undiscovered 6 . 



As soon as the specimen reached me, I took it to S. Kensington for 

 comparison with Cameron's " T^^pe," and found that the}'^ agreed com- 

 pletely in venation, size, structure, and coloration — even in such minute 

 details of the latter as might be expected to vaiy in individuals. 

 Cameron's original description, which is repeated almost verbatim in 

 his Monograph, is quite adecpiate for identification of the species ; but I 

 seeem to detect in it certain inexactitudes and omissions, which it ma}' 

 be desirable to notice. 



I. The abdomeu is not — as one would gather from the description — 

 entirely black, except its white apical dorsal plate. Alike iu the tyi^e and in 



