4 [February, 



of species is obvious, and the object of the present note is to enlist during the 

 current winter the sympathetic aid of readers of this journal, in securing and 

 forwarding for identification collections of hibernating flies. Such flies may 

 be looked for in attics and other unoccupied rooms, in chinks and crannies in 

 living rooms, such as the space between a shutter or a loose piece of wall-paper 

 and the wall, and in stables, barns and other out-buildings close to houses. Every 

 consignment of flies so collected, if forwarded (with a label stating place and 

 date of capture) either to Dr. S. Monckton Copeman, F.R.S., Local Government 

 Board, Whitehall, S.W., or to the writer, will be gratefully and promptly 

 acknowledged and investigated. The flies should be placed, just as they 

 are, in a small tin box or wide-mouthed bottle, well protected by soft 

 wrapping, and despatched by parcel post. Such parcels if sent to Dr. Copeman, 

 at the Local Government Board, and marked " O.H.M.S.," need not be stamped. — 

 Ernest E. Austen, British Museum (Natural History), Cromwell Road, London, 

 S.W. : January 10th, 1914. 



Pterostichus parumpunctatxis, Germ., in the Newcastle district. — This beetle 

 has been very abundant this year in the Newcastle district. My friend 

 Mr. W. E. Sharp, while staying with me in March, took two specimens under 

 bai - k in Ravensworth Woods, but in April the species turned up in great numbers 

 in the same place ; 70 specimens were taken in a very restricted area, and I was 

 able to supply a number of friends and correspondents with series. After this 

 no further search was made for it, but odd examples continued to turn up in 

 different places until the second week in July. The last one taken this year 

 occurred in mid-November, walking on the road only half-a-mile from my house. 

 The species occurs chiefly under logs, but is found also under bark, in rotten 

 wood, under stones in damp places, and one even turned up in the sweeping net. 

 There was little variation of any kind in the specimens observed. — 

 Geo. B. Walsh, B.Sc, 156, Bede Burn Road, Jarrow-on-Tyne : December, 1913. 



Neoclytus acuminatus, F., in Yorkshire. — On the occasion of the Annual 

 Meeting of the Entomological Section of the Yorkshire Naturalists' Union, I 

 was handed a pill box containing a beetle. Casually glancing at it I rashly 

 named the insect Clytus arietis, but some time afterwards when taking the 

 specimen out of the cotton-wool in which it was imbedded, I found it was not 

 that species, but Neoclytus acuminatus, F. (Clytus erythrocephalus, F.). I at 

 once wrote to its captor asking for further particulars. These he very kindly 

 supplied me with, and I can now add that the insect was taken from an ash 

 tree, imported via Liverpool (no doubt from America) in the wood yard of a 

 firm of machine makers in Huddersfield. The species has been twice recorded 

 previously : by Mr. Doubleday in his garden at Epping, and by Mr. Thorpe at 

 Middleton, near Manchester. The former of these is referred to by Stephens 

 (111. Man. IV, 245), who quotes from Curtis, fo. 199: "Mr. SparshalFs cabinet 

 contains a single specimen of this insect, taken alive a few years since in 

 Epping Forest by Mr. Doubleday," and adds, " but the insect being a native of 





