1P22.] 



The question remains : how do the beetles effect entrance to a coffin 

 huried many feet in the earth ? In the present instance Dr. Spilsbuiy 

 feels certain that the mature beetles could not have done so, and indeed 

 it is probable, if only on account of their numbers, that they had 

 matured from larvae that had developed there. As the beetle is seldom 

 found away from grave-yards, it is tolerably certain that the eggs could 

 not have been laid upon the corpse before the coffin was closed (as may 

 be the case with Fliora, although burial took place in the month of 

 February). The probability seems in favour of the newly hatched larva 

 having effected entrance, but whether the beetle burrows down to 

 oviposit on the surface of the coffin, or whether she lays her eggs on the 

 surface and the young larvae burrow down, or whether the eggs were 

 laid on the sods with which the bottom of the grave was lined, we have 

 no evidence. In any case in the course of the ten months during which 

 in this instance, the corpse had been buried the beetles had evidently 

 passed through at least one life-cycle, thus proving that their presence on 

 a corpse cannot be taken, as claimed by M. Megnin, as evidence that 

 two years have elapsed since burial. 



British Museum (Natural History). 

 February 19:22. 



THREE NEW ORTHOPTERA FROM PALESTINE AND N.W. PERSIA. 

 BY B. P. UTAKOV, F.E.S. 



The following new species of Orthoptera from Palestine and one 

 new subspecies from N.W. Persia are described from collections sent to 

 the Imperial Bureau of Entomology by Dr. P. A. Buxton, at present 

 Government Entomologist at Jerusalem. The types are preserved in 

 the British Museum collection. 



1. Sjjhingonotus coerulans L., subsp. coerulipes, n. 



One male and two females taken 25th-2Gth August, 1919, at Kazvin, N.W. 

 Persia, differ from the typical (European) specimens of S. coerulans by the 

 following- characters, which compel me to separate them aa a distinct 

 geographical race : — 



Frontal riJge of the $ between the antennae somewhat convex, with the 

 margins slightly diverging downwards, just below the ocellum constricted 

 and distinctly impressed, disappearing before it reaches half-way between the 

 ocelhim and clypeus. False vein iu the discoidal field perfectly straight, 

 parallel to the hind radial ; the hind discoidal area about three times as broad 

 as the foro discoidal. Hind femora on the inner side bluish bhnck, with a 

 broad pale ring before the apex. Iliud tibiae «ky.blue, with the in.side of their 



