270 [December, 



near the base above. Westwood's figure [Tntrod. Glass. Ins. i, p. 175, 

 fig. 17 (17)] was taken from one o£ several examples found creeping 

 about the iron palisades of a London square, by Mr. Ingpen ; he reared 

 them through one moult, but none lived to maturit3^ Those here figured 

 Ave re taken, with many others, on two different rainy daj^s towards the 

 end of September, crawling on the straight-cut bare red clay bank at 

 the foot of the downs bordering the cart-track along and above the 

 eastern bank of the River Otter, between Otterton and IJudleigh 

 Salterton. The prevailing wet weather at the time may have washed 

 them down from the grassy slope above, as none were seen later when 

 the ground had dried again, or they may have been seeking for a place 

 to pupate. These larvae were not recognized at the time, and were in 

 a hasty moment transferred to ray spirit-tubes just before I returned 

 home, so that no attempt was made to rear them. Xambeu states that 

 the larvae of the allied B. fascia fits, as observed by him at Ilia in tlie 

 Pyrenees, were found deep down in the earth amongst the roots of plants, 

 upon which the larvae of other beetles fed, but the actual food of this 

 ])articular Bt/rrhns was not ascertained ; he remarks that they were still 

 young in October, and could then be found in the earth, and that they 

 liibernated at the bottom of their subterranean gallerj^ regaining their 

 activity with the return of fine weather, pujjating after mid-July. 

 Chapuis and Candeze merely say, of jB. pilula, that the larva is found 

 in the earth, beneath turf. To judge from the form of the mandibles, 

 the larvae are certainly root-feeders. The figures here given are taken 

 from spirit-specimens photographed for me by Mr. A. Cant ; they show 

 a little more detail than the very good one given by Ganglbauer. 

 Ilorsell, Woking, 

 Oct. 1917. 



A REMARKABLE NEW SCIRTES FROM NYASALAND. 

 BY a. C. CHAMPION, F.Z.S. 



Amongst the numerous interesting beetles captured by Mr. S. A. 

 Neave in Nyasaland and' elsewhere in Tropical Africa, there is a species 

 of Se/r/f's very much larger than anything previously recorded as 

 belonging to that genus. It is so like various Halticiilae that it was 

 found placed among them in the British Museum. 



Scirtes gig ant ens, n. sp. 



Hemispherical, moderately convex, shining ; reddisli-brown, the eyes, 

 antennae (the apical oint aud the under surface of the basal joint, which 



