19H.] 221 



Mag., XLIX, p. 28). It is of the same brownish colour, with the 

 same fluted surface, and the same circle of minute points at one end. 

 The only difference is that it is a little shorter, and therefore propor- 

 tionately stouter, but this difference is almost imperceptible till they 

 are placed side by side ; and, indeed, is far less than would have been 

 expected, considering the much smaller size of the imago. 



The young larvte hatched out in the same way as those of B. 

 clavipes, by bursting out, with an irregular fracture, through one end 

 of the egg, and not by the removal of a cap at the summit. Their 

 disclosure occurred at intervals during the third and fourth weeks in 

 June. The larva closely resembles that of B. clavipes, and is similarly 

 beset, body, antennae and legs, with capitate hairs. It is shorter in 

 body, and has not the green tinge of the larger species, being quite 

 colourless, save for a slight smokiness of legs and antennae. The 

 abdomen has many black dots iipon its dorsal surface, and from these 

 spring the globe-tipped hairs. I supplied these larvae with both 

 Ononis and Trifolinm, and by preference they selected the former. 

 But, unfortunately, the same fate awaited them as befell those of 

 B. clavipes, and they all succumbed before their first ecdysis. 



56, Cecile Park, 



Crouch End, N. : 

 August 15th, 1914. 



Hoplia philanthus near Cambridge, arid Homaloplia ruricola in Oxfordshire. 

 — It may be of interest to note the occurrence in profusion of Hoplia philanthus 

 on the marshy ground known as Quy Fen, a few miles from Cambridge, on the 

 last days of June this year. The beetles were seen by two assistants attached 

 to the University Zoological Laboratory, Messrs. P. H. Sharman and G. A. 

 Drury. On the morning of June 27th, Mr. Sharman saw large numbers of the 

 Hoplia flying round one particular bush near a pond, and other specimens 

 scattered at short distances from it. He took four examples, all $ $ , together 

 with one ? Phyllopertha horticola. Mr. Drury visited Quy Fen three days 

 later, on the morning of June 30th, and found the insect in great abundance 

 flying round and settling on bushes. He took 22 specimens, 21 being £ , and 

 only one ? . On both occasions many more specimens could have been cap- 

 tured had this been necessary. Newmarket and some localities in Cambridge- 

 shire have been recorded for this species. Stephens, in 1830, quotes the 

 Rev. L. Jenyns as recording it from " about Ely, and from the Devil's-ditch, 

 plentiful " (111. Brit. Ent. iii, p. 228), but I am not aware that its occurrence on 

 Quy Fen has been previously noted, and the present case affords another 

 instance of the remarkable profusion in which, when it occurs at all, this insect 

 sometimes appears. 



