40 [February, 



identical habits. Colydium e!ongalum,F.. is not. attached to Platypus cylindrus,¥., 



alone, but is found in the burrows of beetles not nearly so closely allied as the two 

 species of Lyctus just mentioned. Mr Donisthorpe has taken it with Dryocoztes 

 villosux, F., and another species of Scolytid, as well as in the burrows of Melasis 

 buprestoides, L. In conclusion, finding Epursea angustula, Er., and Acrulia inflala, 

 G-yll., in the borings of Try pod en droit domesticum, L , shall we say that these two 

 species will be found with T. domesticum alone and with no other beetle, however 

 closely related ?— R. S. Bagnall, The Groves, Winlaton-on-Tyne : December llth, 

 1907. 



Bruchus affinis, Frohl., a British insect.— In the Ent. Mo. Mag. (antca, p. 2) 

 Mr. Champion expresses the opinion that " the true Bruchus affinis probably has 

 no claim to a place on the British list." This, however, is not the case. On 

 May 14th, 1893, when in company with my old friend, the late Arthur Chitty, 

 I swept a specimen in Darenth Wood It has a strong tooth on the thorax, the 

 anterior legs are all red, and the bare black spots on the pygidium are very con- 

 spicuous. — Horace Donisthoupe, 58, Kensington Mansions, S.W.: January, 1908. 



Rhizophagus parallelocollis, Er., in seed potatoes. — It may be of interest to 

 add a further confirmation of the subterranean habits of this beetle, as referred to 

 by Dr. Joy and Dr. Bailey (Ent. Mo. Mag., vols, xlii, p. 256, and xliii, p. 3). While 

 digging up potatoes in my garden during August and September in the past season 

 I several times met with the insect in the rotting seed potatoes. They occurred in 

 potatoes which were in all stages of decay, from some that were still hard and but 

 little changed from what they were when planted, to others that were a semi-fluid 

 mass of corruption and most offensive. Those which were found early in August 

 were of a paler colour than those met with later, and had apparently not long been 

 disclosed from the pupa?. Bathyscia wollastoni occurred with the Rhizophagus in 

 the earlier finds, but not in the later ones. The only other beetles were a few 

 " Staphs," but the Rhizophagus was the characteristic species — E. A. Hutlek, 

 56, Cecile Park, Crouch End, N. : November IQth, 1907. 



Fresh-water Mollusca disseminated by water-beetles. — That insects play a part 

 in the dissemination of Mollusca is well known, but records of observations are by 

 no means numerous. It is interesting therefore to note that Canon Horsley took 

 a Dytiscus marginal is last summer, in the Ravcnsbourne stream near Catford, with 

 two specimens of the little freshwater limpet Ancylus lacustris attached to its 

 elytra — J. R. le B. Tomlin, Stoneley, Reading : January, 1908. 



Melanism, Sfc, in Abraxas ulmata. — During the early part of last summer a 

 non-entomologist brought me a specimen of Abraxas ulmata, with the information 

 that on the rough pathway and adjoining ground outside Harden Clough Wood, 

 near here, the moth was so abundant that one could scarcely avoid treading on them 

 as one walked along. Knowing that the species was every year more or less common 

 in that, wood, I regarded the report of its excessive abundance as probably a mild 

 exaggeration, and thought no more about it. But about the same time, as I after- 



