14 



In our neighbourhood there is certainly only one brood in the year, but 

 it keeps out a long time, at least from six to eight weeks, as the perfect 

 insect may still be met with at the end of July and beginning of 

 August." 



Tricliodactylus, or as we must now call it, Didactylus, Lin., has not 

 yet been observed in England, but if the flowers of Geum rivale be 

 searched (May should be the month, but probably it is not yet quite 

 too late), and a Pterophorus larvae be found thereon, we may be able in 

 our next number to chronicle its occurrence. 



Geum rivale is not a common plant, but in Babington's Flora, of 

 Cambridgeshire, we find as localities, " Wood Ditton Park Wood — 

 Wooded part of the Devil's Ditch and Gamlingay Wood." In 

 Henslow's Flora, of Suffolk, we read, "Not unfrequent Link Woods, 

 Kushbrooke, plentiful with intermedium. Bradfield, St. George, Hitcham, 

 Bergholt, and elsewhere ;" and in Preston's Flora, of Marlborough, the 

 following localities are given, " Copses round the foot of Martinsell, 

 Woods beyond Great Bedwin, Kabley Copse, Mildenhall Borders." In 

 Johnston's Natural Sistory of the Eastern Borders he says, "Sides of 

 streamlets, burns and ditches, and in boggy woods and meadows, 

 common." 



ON THE STRUCTUEE AND AFFINITIES OF THE LATRIDII. 

 BY T. VEENON WOLLASTON, M.A., F.L.S. 



A COREESPONDENT having lately called my attention to the Latridius 

 nodifer,* Westw., and expressed his surprise that nobody has attempted 

 hitherto to erect it into a distuact genus. I have dissected it with great 

 care, in order to ascertain whether it possesses any structural peculia- 

 rities of sufficient importance to warrant its detachment from the 

 remaining members of the group. The result has been that I can 

 detect nothing in which it recedes from the normal Latridii; though its 

 mere specific features are undoubtedly so well expressed, and remark- 

 able, that we cannot wonder at the existence of a suspicion that some 

 accompanying difference of positive structure might perhaps be brought 

 to light by a careful examination of its oral organs. 



The various details of structui'e which characterize Latridius are 

 so unmistakeable that it is scarcely necessary to advert to them. But 

 I may briefly add that, as regards the parts of the mouth, I should con- 

 sider its extremely wide (though abbreviated) and corneous upper-lip, 



* It is somewhat curious that this insect, iilthough widely spread over England, and in some loca- 

 lities absolutely abundant, has but recently been discovered on tlie Continent. I have myself taken it 

 in eight or nine English counties; and in a conservatory adjoining ray house at Teign mouth I could 

 capture almost any required number. 



