92 [April, 



figured. The MSS. of the rest of the letterpress is said to be finished, and tlie 

 author hopes to be able to publish it before very long, the delay, of course, 

 being due to the present state of aflairs on the Continent. Unfortunately for 

 most of us, the text (including the title-page) is in the Russian language, but 

 as many eastern species are here figured for the first time, the plates alone will 

 be of great assistance to working Coleopterists. The author gives tables for 

 all the families, genera, etc., and a list of tlie species under each genus, witli 

 full references. He also enumerates the genera and species likely to occur in 

 Asiatic Russia, i. e., many from Japan, China, etc. The portions of the book 

 so far published, including the plnte~, are priced at £3 in London, and they can 

 be obtained through Mr. Uvarov, IJritish Museum (Nat. History), Cromwell 

 Road, S.W.— Eds. 



Nebria iberica Oliveira, a British Species. — Early last year my friend 

 Lt.-Col. Sainte Claire Deville, when writing to me respecting Nebria, on which 

 genus he had published two notes (liull. Soc. Ent. France, 1921, pp. 68, 157), 

 mentioned two forms — one in which the upper surf:ice of all the tarsi is 

 furnished with some little hairs {breoicollis vera), and the other in which the 

 hairs are not present on the posterior tarsi, the upper surface of w^iich is 

 entirely glabrous [iberica Paul. d'Oliv.) — and asked me to send him fresh unset 

 .specimens from the British Isles. AJ though this insect {brevicollis Brit. Cat.) 

 is one of our most common and widely distributed beetles, it was not until 

 September that I was able to find a single specimen. On September 17th, 

 when collecting with my friend Mr. P. Harwood, at Westerham, we found a 

 few examples of a Nebria in a sand-pit, and these I sent to Lt.-Col. Deville. 

 He informed me they were not brevicollis s. str., but were the recently 

 separated iberica P. d^Oliv. = klinckou'stromi Mjob. ; they have upperside 

 of the posterior tarsi quite glabrous and the striae of elytra not so deep. 

 He pointed out that it would be extremely interesting to know if the two 

 forms existed in the British Isles, as they do in " les departements franfaises au 

 sud de la Manche." It occurred to me that it would be important to find out 

 if possible whether Fabricius's type of N. brevicollis possessed the fine hairs on 

 the posterior tarsi ; as it was certain, without looking up his original descrip- 

 tion (Ent. Syst. i, p. 150), that he would not have mentioned so small a detail. 

 I therefore wrote to Mr. H. E. Andre wes, who has done so much valuable work 

 on the types of the Carabidae, to ask him about this point. He replied that 

 the point was a very interesting one, and he has very kindly taken a great 

 deal of trouble to elucidate it. He wrote to the museums at Copenhagen, 

 Kiel, and Berlin. Mr. Henriksen wrote to him from Copenhagen that the 

 type was not there ; and Dr. Reibisch from Kiel that there are three examples 

 of N. brevicollis in Fabricius's collection all with pubescent hind tarsi, like the 

 specimens taken now commonly in that neighbourhood. Mr. Andrewes says 

 that Helwig''s and Hoffmausegg's collections formed the basis of the Zoological 

 Museum in Berlin, and the type came from Helwig's collection. Dr. W. Horn 

 informs him there are five examples from the Helwig and Rossi collections in 

 that museum, and all of them have a fine, sparse pubescence on the upper 

 surface of the hind tarsi. Mr. Andrewes considers that the type is among 

 these five specimens. This appears to settle the question that the form with 

 pubescence on the hind tarsi is the breuicollis F. Mr. Andrewes also told me 



