1S11"] 239 



the fact that he did distuiguish them is not mentioned in the synonymy 

 given in v. Dalla Torre's " Catalogvis." But, as far as I know, only one 

 author has stated that he was himself acquainted with both forms and 

 that he considered them distinct. This author was INIarquet (189G), 

 who not only separated arcjeiitatus Curtis from mucronatus ¥., but 

 called the former " une espece bien difterente," and added that mucro- 

 natus but not argentatus was known to Gerstaecker, and argenfatus but 

 not mucronatus to Edw. Saunders. There is, in fact, no specimen of 

 typical 'mucronatus in Saunders's collections at South Kensington. 



I have m3'self found, in Germany and Switzerland, mucronatus F. 

 (typical) only; whereas, in this country, I have only met with argen- 

 tatus. The latter occurs also in Northern France. Marquet gives 

 Dunquerque and Lille as localities, and in Saunders's collection at 

 S. Kensington there are three specimens from St. Briac (Bretagne) and 

 one from the Channel Islands. From Belgium too, apjiarently, it is 

 described by Wesmael under the name mucronatus, as a great rarity 

 (two 2 2 only from the sand-dunes near Ostend). It does not seem to 

 have been recorded from any other country ; but Sajo (1884) described 

 from Hungary a species which he called treforti, characterizing it in a 

 manner which at once suggests arfjentntusl A pair of treforti Sajo 

 (received from the author) are now in the general collection at South 

 Kensington, and having carefully compared them with sj)ecimens of British 

 arrjentatus, neither Mr. R. Turner nor myself can discover any character 

 by which the}'^ can be distinguished. Treforti Sajo has been recognized 

 as a "good species," distinct from mucronatus F., by Kohl {I. c), and is 

 entered as such in v. Dalla Torre's " Catalogus." Whether or no argen- 

 tatus Curtis be, as I incline to believe, identical with it, it appears to me 

 that either both these or neither should be accepted as distinct from 

 mucronatus F. And if the two are identical and a "good species," the 

 name argentatus Curtis has, of course, priority by many years over 

 treforti Sajo. 



Unless, as I suspect, argentatus and treforti are identical, it would 

 a])pear from the available records that argentatus occurs onl\^ in Britain, 

 the Channel Islands, North France, and Belgium ; while mucronatus 

 is limited to Central and Southern Europe. This would suggest 

 that the two are local forms ( = " subspecies ") of a single species, for I 

 must own that, apart from colour and pilosity, I fail (even after com- 

 parison of the S genitalia) to discover any character by which they can 

 be separated. Marquet speaks of slight differences in the shape of the 

 mucro and mandibles ; but his material was obviously extremely limited, 

 and such differences as he mentions might fairly be considered as merely 



