ISO 



[August, 



The original capture of Nebria livida on the Yorkshire coast.— Being a former 

 student in the late Professor Williamson's classes, I was interested on reading his 

 recently published autobiography (Reminiscences of a Yorkshire Naturalist, by the 

 late W. C. Williamson, M.R.C.S., LL.D., F.R.S., Professor of Botany in the Owen's 

 College, Manchester ; edited by his Wife), to learn that in his school-days he was an 

 enthusiastic entomologist. He mentions that whilst at school at Thornton he 

 collected insects for the Scarborough Museum, where his father was curator for 

 twenty-seven years. He continued his insect collecting whilst a medical pupil to a 

 surgeon in Scarborough, but after that time medical practice, botany, geology, palseo- 

 botany, and microscopic researches occupied his time to the exclusion of any further 

 work of an entomological nature. In chapter II he describes the circumstances 

 attending the first capture of Nebria livida on the Yorkshire coast, as follows : — 



" During my medical studentship (1832 — 35), my father and I acquired con- 

 siderable knowledge of the birds and insects of eastern Yorkshire. In the latter 

 branch of study we had made one fortunate discoTery. We had early collected a 

 single specimen of a beetle unknown to us, and were unable to learn the name until 

 we found in Curtis' ' British Entomology ' a figure and description of our insect. 

 It proved to be Nebria livida. The writer stated that an extremely small number 

 — I think three or four isolated examples — had been collected on the Lincolnshire 

 coast. We wholly failed to recollect where we had obtained our single specimen. 

 Long afterwards, we were working amongst the rocks of Cornbrash, which, fallen 

 from a higher part of the precipitous cliff, were then strewn in considerable 

 numbers over the sandy shore of the south-eastern corner of the north bay of 

 Scarborough. Turning over one of these blocks, my eye quickly detected a Nebria 

 running out of the depressed sand upon which the stone had rested. Securing my 

 prize, I quickly joined my father, and showed him my captured treasure. We then 

 remembered that this was the place where we had obtained our original specimen. 

 It was long before other localities were discovered from which the insect could be 

 obtained in any numbers ; and since it re-appeared at ours every summer, until the 

 bridge and embankment ruined the spot, we were able to supply the needs of our 

 entomological friends." — J. Haeold Bailey, 128, Broad Street, Pendleton : June, 

 1896. 



" 'Sembling" of Athous niger. — On the 11th inst. in the hot sunshine at mid-day 

 my attention was attracted to a number of large black insects flying about a pseony, 

 and on going close to it I saw about a dozen of this beetle in a state of great ex- 

 citement alternately taking short flights and settling on the upper leaves, there 

 making brief runs and then rising again on their wings. After watching them for 

 a few minutes I was called away, and left them in full enjoyment of their exercise, 

 ccincluding that it was an ante-nuptial assembly, such as is usual among certain 

 Lepidoptera, though I had no actual proof thereof. At any rate, such a scene has 

 never before come within my experience in Coleoplera, but my opportunities of ob- 

 servation of insect life at hot high noon having been always very restricted, there 

 may be another explanation. I went away saying to myself C'est toujours I'amour ; 

 when after a short interval I returned, sunshine and solitude reigned supreme. — 

 J. W. Douglas : June lUh, 1896. 



