156 



of which eight are found in this country, one only being at all doubtful, 

 as it stands on the authority of a single specimen in the Stephensian 

 collection. 



The Bolitohii are all bright, gaily coloured insects, very rapid in 

 their movements, and found iu fungi and dead leaves, or by pulling 

 moss and cutting tufts of grass in the winter. 



The genus is separated from Mycetoporus, to which it bears some 

 resemblance (J£ splendidus being especially BoUtobiiform), by its 

 maxillary palpi, in which the apical joint is nearly, if not quite, as long 

 as, and rather narrower than, the preceding ; whereas, in Mycetoporus, 

 the apical joint is minute, slender, and subulate, as in Bemhidium 

 among the GeodepJiaga. 



BoUtohius is separated into two sections ; the first (being the genus 

 Megacronus of Stephens), comprising the first four species, in which the 

 head is less elongate, the antennae rather stouter, and the joints of the 

 maxillary palpi broad and short ; the basal joints of the anterior tarsi 

 are also dilated in the males. In the second section {BoUtohius proper), 

 the maxillary palpi are elongate and slender, and the head more porrect; 

 the anterior tarsi are also not dilated in the male. The difference in 

 the palpi is so striking (to say nothing of other characters), that it 

 seems curious to me that these two sections are not generically sepa- 

 rated ; Dr. Kraatz having founded the genus Bryoporus, to include 

 some of Erichson's Bolitohii, on certainly no better grounds of dis- 

 tinction. 



(megaceonus, Steph.) 

 1. — AiTALis, Payhull (Staphylinus) ; Erichson, Oen. et Spec. Staph., 

 269, 1. 



2^-3 liu. Shining black ; the legs (including the anterior coxae), 

 mouth and palpi, four basal joints, and the apical joint, of antennae, 

 reddish-testaceous ; the elytra, apical, penultimate, and lower lialf of 

 the ante-penultimate, segments of the abdomen, red. In the male the 

 apical joint of the antennae is oblong, cylindrical, and almost as long as 

 the three preceding joints. 



The thorax is very polished, and with only a few remote punctures 

 along the margins ; six along the front, three on each side, and four 

 along the base. The presence of these punctures is indicated by a hair 

 growing out of each. The elytra are a third longer than the thorax, 

 with a row of about ten small, but distinct, punctures on each side of 

 the suture ; an irregular row of about seven punctures, almost obsolete, 

 half-way between the suture and the sides, and a row of distinct punc- 



