November, 1883.] 121 



NOTES ON EUTHEIA CLAVATA, REITTER, 



AND PTENIBIUM GRESSNESI, ERICHSON, TWO SPECIES 



OF COLEOPTEEA NEW TO BRITAIN. 



BY W. Q. BLATCH. 



EuTHEiA CLATATA, Eeitter. 



Early in the spring of this year, I spent a single day in Sherwood 

 Forest, where, in addition to other interesting captures, I had the 

 good fortune to meet with a few specimens of Eutheia clavata, under 

 bark of oak logs. It is a very distinct species, and easily separable 

 from the other three British Eutheice. Compared with E. scydmoenoides, 

 which it somewhat resembles in colour, and in having fine depressions 

 at the base of the thorax, E. clavata is larger, flatter, and much less 

 ovate, the elytra being in fact almost parallel-sided : the antennae are 

 lighter coloured, except the three terminal joints, which are darker 

 (under a glass of low power, they seem quite black), and more 

 decidedly clavate ; those of the female are very elongate, being nearly 

 one-fourth longer than those of the male, with the club less pro- 

 nounced. 



This species is described in Deutsch. Ent. Zeit., xxv (1881), p. 

 206, but Eeitter does not appear to have seen the female. It seems 

 to have occurred in Hungary, Grcrmany, and the Central Pyrenees ; 

 M. Albert Eauvel, who kindly determined the species for me, in- 

 forms me that he has a single $ from the environs of Luchon. 



Ptenidium Geessneei, Erichsou. 



Amongst my New Forest captures in June last, were a few things 

 not determined at the time when I sent my previous note (ante, p. 

 85), one, at least, of which turns out to be a species new to Britain, 

 viz. : Ptenidium Gi^essneri, Er. I took a few specimens on a beech- 

 stump, accompanied by Pt. turgidum. Thorns. 



This species is described by the Eev. A. Matthews (who kindly 

 identified my insect) in his Monograph of the Trichopterygia, p. 78. 

 He there says that it is found in ants' nests, but there were no ants, 

 so far as I could see, in or near the stump from which I obtained the 

 beetle. Fungi were growing freely from the crevices between the 

 bark and the wood, and it was after shaking these over the flat surface 

 of the stump (to get Aradus corticalis) that I found the Ptenidia 

 running about. This would seem to indicate that P. Gressneri (as 

 well as its hitherto rare congener, P. iurgidum) may be found by 

 searching fungi in similar situations. 



214, Green Lane, Smalllieath, Birmingham : 

 Odoher X&k, 1883. 



