160 [Ducember, 



from water mills, sides o£ waterfalls, and similar localities ; while D. 

 dumetorum frequents bushes in comparatively dry places : both have a 

 wide range in Britain, as I have taken D. dumetorum from the Isle of 

 Wight to Sutherland, and D. didyma from Devonshire to Sutherland. 



(Zb be continued). 



Salpingus mutilatus, Beck, a British insect. — Three examples of a Salpingus 

 captured by myself on different occasions by evening sweeping in open beech woods 

 on the chalk downs at Caterham, in September, 1872, and September, 1874, and a 

 fourth taken in a similar manner at Gomshall, Surrey, in August, 1873, are referable 

 to this species. 



S. mutilatus, ^cck. (= S. virescens, Muls., 1856, «ec virescens, Lee, 1850), has 

 not hitherto been recorded from this country. Mulsant {cf. Rostriferes, p. 41) sepa- 

 rated the species from true Salpingus, on account of the somewhat different structure 

 of the rostrum, and placed it by itself in his section Colposis. In the general 

 structure of the head and oral organs it is almost intermediate between the true 

 Salpingi and Rabocerus, Muls. ; the latter contains only one European species, R. 

 foveolatus, Ljungh, and is not regarded by recent writei-s as generically distinct from 

 Salpingus. The present insect will be readily known from our true British Salpingus, 

 S. ater, S. ceratus, and S. castaneus, by the long exserted mandibles, the broadly 

 flattened and almost concave frontal region of the head, the shorter thorax, the 

 strongly impressed elytra, the very shining upper surface, the greenish-bronze colour, 

 the reddish-testaceous labrum, mandibles and legs, &c. ; from S. foveolatus, which it 

 more nearly resembles in the structure of the mandibles, by the shorter and narrower 

 rostrum, the differently coloured oral organs, the flattened frontal region, the differ- 

 ently formed labrum, the smaller size, the more shining and differently coloured 

 upper surface, &c. All four examples are somewhat immature, and considerably 

 lighter and less green in colour than in the figure given by Beck (tab. 5, fig. 27) ; 

 the insect, nevertheless, could be thus identified. These specimens are coloured 

 much as in Rhinosimus planirostris, ard, indeed, bear a certain superficial resem- 

 blance (of course apart from the structure of the rostrum) to that common insect ; 

 they have long done duty in my collection for ^. ceratus, an insect not, I think, 

 thoroughly understood by British Coleopterists. 



Herr E. Ecitter has kindly verified one of these examples as above. 

 For further particulars regarding /S. mutilatus I must refer to Beck, Beitr. zur 

 baier. Insekten, p. 19 (1817) ; Mulsant, Rostriferes, p. 41 (1856) ; Abeille de Perrin, 

 Bull. Soc. Toulouse, viii, pp. 26 & 28, &c. The insect is found in France, Bavaria> 

 &c., but not very commonly ; M. Perrin (op. cit.) records it from Boscodon, in the 

 Hantes Alpes, and says it is found in pine (sapin) faggots, in company with S. ceratus 

 and S. foveolatus. 



Note. — I would here suggest the possibility of the occurrence of S. Regi and 

 S. exsanguis, Perrin, in this country ; the former is very closely allied to S. castaneus, 

 and the latter to S. ater and S. ceratus ; S. Reyi has been taken in abundance at 

 Sos in the dead branches of fruit trees. — Geo. C. Champion, 11, Caldervale Road, 

 Clapham, S.W. : November VWi, 1886. 



