ON THE AQUATIC COLEOPTEEA, Etc., OP THE TRENT VALLEY 



IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF LONG EATON. 



BY H. H. WALLIS, M.A. (Cantab.). 



The district under consideration consists of a strip of low-lying 

 ground, less than 100 feet above sea-level. The sub-soil is alluvium or 

 Banter sandstone with pockets of alluvial gravel. The greater part of 

 the area is liable to heavy floods. Kunning streams with gravelly bottoms 

 are not met with, and most of the collecting has been done in ditches and 

 ponds. The three counties of Derbyshire, Leicestershire, and Notting- 

 hamshire meet in about the centre of the area collected over, there being 

 no definite geographical boundaries between them, and the district is 

 a fairly distinct natm-al region. My collecting has seldom extended 

 into Nottinghamshire, but I feel sure that several species unrecorded in 

 Professor Cai-r's " Fauna of Nottinghamshire " and which I have found 

 within a mile of the county boundary must have established themselves 

 in that county. Professor Carr has told me that the water-beetles of 

 Nottinghamshire have been very little worked, which probably accounts 

 for the paucity of the records of the Hydrophilidae. 



I do not suggest that the records below are by any means complete : 

 my collecting has been done during the War, at times when my duties 

 gave me an occasional free hour, but they may be of some value to a 

 Coleopterist working in a district I have now left. 



The open-air swimming-bath at Trent College yielded about twenty- 

 five species. Most of these must have been " visitors," as the water with 

 which the bath is filled comes from a well and the bath is emptied and 

 cleaned in the Spring. The bath is lined with glazed tiles, which do not 

 seem to be likely quarters for beetles which pass the winter months in 

 the imaginal state. These visitors came from some distance, as the only 

 stream in the immediate neighbourhood of the college never yielded me 

 a beetle. Among them may be mentioned Dytiscus circumcinctus, 

 which, I think, is a new record for the Midlands, and Salijjius 

 mucronatus. 



In the list below, the letters D., L., and N. refer to the counties 

 Derbyshire, Leicestershire, and Nottinghamshire, in which specimens 

 were taken. 



Haliplidae : 



Brychiiis elevatus Pz., scarce, L. Haliplus mucronatus Steph., 1 specimen, 

 D. ; H. Jiuviatilis Aub., abundant, L. D. N. ; //. wehnckei Gerh., scarce, 1).; 

 K. ruJicoUis De G., abundant, L. D, N.; H. lineatocollis Marsli., abuudaut, 

 L. D. N. 



