180 [August, 



THE BRITISH SPECIES OP APHELOCHIRUS (HEMIPTERA). 

 BT E. A. BUTLER, B.A., B.SC, F.E.S, 



In the year 1899. Dr. Horvath, of Budapest, published a synopsis 

 enumerating four species of this genus (Termesz. fiizet. xxii, pp. 256- 

 267), two of which, A. aestivalis Fabr. and A. montandoni Horv., ai-e 

 therein mentioned as inhabitants of Britain. In his " Guide to the 

 study of British Water-bugs" ('Entomologist,' xxxiii, p. 151), the hite 

 Mr. Kirkaldy pointed out some 3'ears ago that the hitter of these two 

 species corresponds to what has hitherto been known amongst British 

 Hemipterists as A. aestivalis, while tlie former seems to have been 

 recorded by Horvath as British under a misapprehension. The facts are 

 as follows : — Towards the close of the 18th century, two macropterous 

 specimens were taken in France by the entomologist Bosc, and these 

 formed the material upon which tlie original desci-iption of JSfaucoris 

 aestivalis was based by Fabricius in 1791j. Long after, one of these, 

 a $ , was sent by the administrators of the Museum of the Jardin des 

 Plantes, where Bosc's collection was deposited, to Prof. Westwood, and 

 •he, in 1833, separated this insect from Nattcoris, on the ground of the 

 non-raptorial character of the anterior legs, founding for it the genus 

 Aphelocliirus ('Loudon's Magazine of Natural History,' vi, pp. 228- 

 229). Under this same species, which now stood as A. aestivalis Fabr., 

 he included some brachj'pterous specimens which had a little while before 

 been taken in England ; these, however, are now known to be specifically 

 distinct, and really repi-esent the species named by Horvath A. montan- 

 doni. The figure of A. aestivalis Fabr. given by Westwood in his 

 'Modern Classification of Insects' was taken from Bosc's French 

 specimen, and he distinctly states that all his British examples were 

 brachypterous. Through the courtesy of Prof. Poulton, I have been 

 able to examine Bosc's specimen, and I find that Westwood's figure of 

 it is too brightly coloured, and it is inaccurate in the outline of the 

 genital segment. This same French insect afterwards did duty for 

 the figure contained in Douglas and Scott's ' British Hemiptera,' pub- 

 lished in 1865, altliough no such form had been found in Britain. This 

 figure is similarly inaccurate in the genital segment, while the terminal 

 joints of the antennae are made to appear as if they were spines on the 

 pronotum. In the description given by Douglas and Scott, the brief 

 diagnosis aj)peai's, from the colour mentioned, to refer to this French 

 macropterous specimen, while the detailed account refers also partly to 

 the brachypterous ones, i. e. to A. montandoni. The figure given by 



