is'-'l 135 



ring these different points of structure to the same species, a further var. is rcquii-ed to 

 include the Irish specimens, " elytris evidenter sat grosse striato-punctatis, interstitiis 

 siib-elevatis ;" and it is then easily seen how our correspondent has been misled, if, 

 indeed, it be not necessary to rename a species which so contradicts its own characters ; 

 as the original blandus is stated by its author to be distinguished by the absence of 

 the very features it is now stated to possess. — E. C. R.] 



Note on Chrysomela marginata. — This species, originally found, I believe, near 

 Pegwell Bay, near Eamsgate, seems decidedly scarce on this side of the border, though 

 not so uncommon in Scotland, where it has been found by Dr. Syme in Orkney (on 

 Tlantago mariiima), and by Mr. Champion at Bracmar by sweeping alongside the Deo. 

 If ear Edinburgh it is not uncommon, though very local. As far as I know, it is confined 

 to one particidar spot on Arthur's Seat, a much exposed valley between the summit of 

 the hill and a lesser peak known as the Lion's Ilavmch, about 700 feet above the sea, 

 where the grass forms a short velvety turf, and the surface of the ground is covered 

 with scattered fragments of the neighbouring basalt rocks. Beneath these fragments 

 Chrysomela marginata is to be found, singly, or in twos and threes. When disturbed^ 

 it persistently feigns death. It begins to ap^Dcar about the middle of June, and is 

 most common about the first week in July, when I have taken as many as thirty 

 specimens in the course of an afternoon's work, by assiduously turning over stones, 

 &c., in its locality. I have never seen the larva or pupa, and do not know for certain 

 what its food-plant at Edinburgh is, as no Plantago maritima grows near. The 

 short turf of the lull is composed in great part of millefoil (AcJiillea millefoliumj , 

 and on that the beetles may feed, as some I kept in captivity fed voraciously on this 

 by night, returning to their shelter at the bottom of the plants by day. I have never 

 seen it moving about in the day-time like its congeners C. menthastri and (according 

 to Mr. Champion) cerealis, but have only found it under the stones. In Wilson's 

 " Entomologia Edinensis," the Calton Hill is also given as a locaUty, but I have 

 never found it there, chiefly no doubt owing to my not having looked there at the 

 right time. — W. A. Foebes, West Wickham, Kent : llth September, 1875. 



On the metamorphoses of Meloe cicatricosus. — On the 11th April, I took a pair of 

 this species coupled, and put them under a bell-glass perforated at the top in a vase, 

 in order to feed them with lueern, duckweed, grasses, &c., all of which they ate. 

 On the 1st ilay, the female had scooped out in the earth a nest, an inch in length 

 and depth, in which she laid 1500 to 2000 eggs of an orange-yellow, after which she 

 very artistically hid the opening by a stopping of masticated leaves and earth. 

 These eggs hatched on the 14th June, and from them came out the kind of larva 

 well known under the name of I'riunrjulin, Dufour, and figured by De Geer, Ileaumur, 

 Newport, Jacquelin-Duval, &c. I knew that these larvco climbed on to llymenopiera, 

 in order that they might thus be carried into their nests, where they undergo their 

 metamorphoses, indeed, I amused myself by causing them to climb on to flowers and 

 thence to jump on to all the Halictus, Osmia, Mcijachile, &c., that I presented to 

 them. But I wished to follow them further, and this was not possible while they 

 were at liberty. 



I then conceived the idea of putting some honey into a glass tube, and upon it 

 an egg drawn from the abdomen of a Vespa vulgaris ; finally, seizing with my pUers 



