1865.] 261 



BemarltS on the habits of Phytosus, 8fc,. — Much patience is required to find the 

 Phytosi, and I have often sought them for many weeks in vain. In fine warm 

 weather, they are to be obtained in moderately dry sand, near a swathe of thrown- 

 op Algce (seldom in the weed) ; and a very good plan of hunting is to stretch 

 yourself at full length upon the sand, shifting your position after a while, when yon 

 will find that the pressure of your body has brought the insects to the surface. 

 Should the sand be wet, they are to be found beneath flat stones (being easiest 

 seen when the stones are white) ; and in very wet weather, they lurk beneath 

 plants of the Sea-rocket (Cakile maritimus), which here grows on sHght elevations 

 of the sand. The above remarks, however, apply only to P. spinifer ; the much 

 rarer P. nigriventris never having occurred to me in any other place than on, or 

 beneath, the Sea-rocket, and my way to find it is to turn back the branches, and 

 closely watch the sand beneath, for it requires a quick eye to detect so thread-like 

 an insect, and which is nearly of the same colour as the sand. Both species dis- 

 appear in cold stormy weather, most probably going deep into the sand. I have 

 frequently taken P. spinifer flying, on a hot sunny day, but never accompanied 

 by its congener ; nor have I met with the two intermixed, or even in the same 

 places of concealment. P. spinifer is also sonietimes to be found in depressions in 

 the loose sand, often made by a foot or horse's hoof, into which the insect is blown 

 during flight. Many other beetles are thus trapped, and fall a prey to spiders and 

 mites ; hundreds of the latter, of a very minute size, abound in these holes, and 

 often cover insects so thickly, that not one portion of the latter can be seen. 

 Bledius arenarius, generally found on level sand, and often within tide-mark, occurs, 

 here sometimes, at the foot of the sloping banks (especially when they are wet) on 

 the landward side of the sands, and is usually accompanied by Dyschirius 

 thoracicus, and occasionally by Stenus nigritulas, Gyll. (unicolor, Steph.). Meeting 

 with an individual of the rare S. airatulus on his travels, in the same place, one 

 fine June day, I watched him to a small conical hillock of sand, and eventually 

 bottled him and all his family, many of whom were in cop. I have since seen a 

 few wanderers of the same species astir, even near the end of October. On shaking 

 tufts at the edges of those banks, Calathus mollis skates down with great rapidity, 

 often simulating death cleverly ; and on, and under, the low plants, Saprinus 

 maritimus, Scymnus Mulsanti, and Chrysomela marginata are to be found ; the latter 

 being one of those species which disappear for years. Cleo7ius sulcirostris afiects 

 the thistles, and is only mentioned as a warning to brother collectors ; for, havin"' 

 been induced last spring to bottle a very fine specimen of it, with other beetles, I 

 found, on setting my captures, that it had bitten nearly everything else ; half a 

 leg, a tarsus, tip of an abdomen, or edges of elytra, — all were nibbled in sheer 

 wantonness. Besides the above insects, the following are to be found in the same 

 place (the sands skirting the villages of Whitley and Hartley, on the south coast 

 of Northumberland), viz., — under Algn', Cillenum, Tachyusa sulcata, Aleoclia/ra 

 ohscurello, Homalota plwmhea, puncticeps, and maritima, Oxytelus maritimus^ 

 Omalium lo'viusculum and riparium ; and on the sands, Ilyohates nigricollis, 

 Mycetoporus nanus, Philimthus procerulus, Bledius longulus, Omalium Allardi, 

 Orthochcetes, &c. North of Hartley, both species of /i<]p'i(,s occur. — T. J. Bold, Long 

 Benton, 1865. 



