April, 1865.] 245 



NOTE ON ANOMMATUS 12-8TBIATU8. 

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



This little insect, which appears to be a decided English rarity, is, 

 nevertheless quite indigenous in Devonshire. I have captured four 

 or five specimens of it during the last few months, in a conservatory 

 attached to my house, — adhering to the under-sides of slices of potato 

 which I had placed on the borders in order to attract slugs. It will be 

 remembered that it was likewise found at Exeter (which is no great 

 distance from Teignmouth), by Mr. Parfitt. I should state that my 

 examples were all taken on peat soil, which had been brought down 

 from the neighbouring hills of Haldon — as a honne houche for that 

 noblest of climbers, the Lapagoria rosea. It is not impossible that by 

 laying a few pieces of wet board upon my flower-beds I should be 

 enabled to entrap more ; for the species is usually met with beneath 

 moist logs of wood, particularly when the latter are so firmly pressed 

 to the earth as to be partially buried in it. At Madeira I once alighted 

 on it in profusion, under the trunk of a cherry-tree which had been 

 long felled, in a damp mountain-ravine. 



I see that the English catalogues cite it as conspecific with the 

 Cerylon ohsoletmn of "the Illustrations;" but certainly there must be 

 some mistake, — either as regards the identification, or else in Stephens's 

 liahitat, — for he expressly mentions that he " caught several specimens 

 of it jiying in a garden at Hertford " (a remarkable fact, it will be 

 admitted, for an insect which has no wings). Indeed, the mere cir- 

 cumstance of its being hlind would alone suffice to neutralize the above 

 assertion, for any creature " desporting itself in the air " without 

 eyes is something more than a paradox ; and, therefore, a fortiori, when 

 it has neither organs of vision nor of flight.* 



With respect to the affinities of Annomatus, I am surprised to find 

 that it should still be assigned to the Golydiadce, — with the essential 

 characters of which it has really nothing whatever in common. But 

 since it was Erichson who placed it in that family, we can easily under- 

 stand why it has been kept there. Yet it is, nevertheless, a fact that 

 Erichson was grossly mistaken concerning one or two of its most 

 important structural details,— pa?' excellence, in regarding its feet, 



* I Iiavo examined the four specimens representing Cerylon obsolctum in the Stephensian Cabinet, 

 Brit. Mua. The first, ^ith a ticket attached, is identical with Uie exponents of C. orj/zce, the species 

 following C. obsoletum in the same collection ; and is, I imagine, un im|)Oi'ted insect. I cannot refer it 

 to any of our recognized genera. It has somewhat thefacies oi Aylenii^ brv-nnciis, hut its less are mucli 

 stouter, and its antennic more strongly and abruptly clavate. The second specimen is a (rue Cerylon; 

 viz., the species known to us as fcrrwjlnentn; and the third and fourth are decidedly Anonxmatus 

 1 -'s/rwitts, with which the detcription also agrees. E. C. R. 



