Miiy, 1896. 1 f)7 



AMARA FAMELICA, Zimm., AN ADDITION TO THE BRITISH LIST. 

 BY G. C. CHAMPION, P.Z.S. 



For some years past I have occasionally captured an Amara in 

 this neighbourhood which appeared to be a form of the variable A. 

 sprefa, Dej. But on comparing these specimens again lately with A. 

 spreta, chiefly at the request of my friend Mr. E. Saunders, who has 

 also met with the insect here, I find that they are unquestionably 

 referable to A. famelica, Zimm. [= contrusa, Schiodte, and vulgaris, 

 Thoms. {nee Panz.)], a species not hitherto recorded as British. I 

 also possess an example captured by myself at Chobham on Septem- 

 ber 10th, 1876. The insect occurs in sandy places on heaths, chiefly 

 in the spring and autumn, in company with the extremely local A. 

 infima, which, so far as I am aware, is confined to this neighbourhood 

 in Britain.* 



A. famelica is intermediate, as it were, between A. spreta, Dej. 

 (= curta, Steph.), and A. lunicollis, Schiodte (= vulgaris, Panz.). 

 From the first-mentioned it may be separated by its more elongate 

 elytra, the distinctly more slender and entirely black legs (the tibiae 

 are pitchy-red in A. spreta), and the darker first and second joints of 

 the antennae ; the males, moreover, have the middle and hind tibiae less 

 bowed, and the females have two setiferous pores (instead of one, as 

 in A. spreta) on either side of the fifth ventral segment near the 

 posterior margin. From A. lunicollis, with which it agrees in the 

 dark basal joints of the antennae and the black legs, it differs in having 

 the thorax less dilated, with the hind angles rectangular (instead of 

 obtuse), and the elytral striae not more deeply impressed towards the 

 apex, the insect in this respect agreeing with A. spreta. The two 

 basal joints of the antennae are usually rufo-testaceous beneath, but 

 they are sometimes entirely black. The thorax has two very distinct 

 impressions on either side near the base, the one near the hind angles 

 oblique, these being very deep in some specimens. The elytra are 

 finely striate throughout. The colour is variable, nigro-cseruleous or 

 almost black examples (Thomson's var. b) occurring. The insect is 

 widely distributed in northern and central Europe, but it his not been 

 recorded from France. According to Schaum (Naturg. Ins. Dcutschl., 

 i, p. 530), whose description applies perfectly to the numerous speci- 

 mens before me, A. famelica is very rare in Germany ; Putzeys 

 (Monogr. des Amara) records it from Belgium. All the British 



* Tho urigiiuil luciility, "Deal," has never bean cunfiimed, and was peiliaps a mistake. 



