1908.] 271 



day Mr. W. West informs me that he look two specimens of it on October 31st, and 

 another on November 2nd, in a manure heap, within 200 yards of his house at 

 Lewisham. As Mr. West remarks, it looks as though the insoct had followed him 

 home from Great Yarmouth, and established itself close at hand. A. crassiuscula 

 may be gradually spreading in England, as are such coprophagous beetles as Apho- 

 dins granarius and Sphseridium scarabxoides in other countries. This last mentioned 

 beetle has been introduced into the United States, and it is recorded by Mr. Dury 

 (Ent. News, 1908, p. 386), as swarming in fresh cow excrement in Ohio, in August 

 last.— G. C. Champion, Horsell : November 5th, 1908. 



A method for collecting Coleoptera in running streams.— A.t the April meeting 

 of the Newark (U.S.A.) Entomological Society (as reported in the Entomological 

 News for October, 1908, p. 393), Mr. Eoberts reported a method for collecting 

 Coleoptera in running streams which perhaps might be tried with advantage in this 

 country. It is as follows :— " To collect in flowing streams, a loosely woven cloth 

 should be stretched across and through the stream, and the stones, gravel, and sand 

 overturned and stirred up a short distance above it. The dislodged beetles will be 

 swept into the cloth to which they will cling for support, and it is only necessary to 

 draw up the cloth and reap the harvest. On one occasion Mr. Roberts collectod by 

 actual count 700 beetles in this manner, after stirring up about two feet of sand and 

 gravel." — Id. 



Note on the Scottish mountain form of Notiophilus aquations, L.—Notiophilus 

 pusilius, Waterh., having been reinstated in our list (anted,, pp. 103, 104), it is 

 necessary to call attention to the small mountain form of N. aquations recorded by 

 myself from Braeinar in 1873 (Ent. Mo. Mag. x, p. 158), as it may be mistaken for 

 N. pusilius. The insect in question is much smaller than typical N. aquaticus, 

 bronze or bluish-bronze in colour, and has the second and third joints of the 

 antenna wholly or in part testaceous, the prothorax much narrowed behind, and the 

 el vtra very finely punctate striate, the striaj almost obsolete towards the apex. This 

 form also occurs at Aviemore, and it seems to come very near the var. strigifrons of 

 Baudi, from the Piedmontese Alps, which, however, is said (Ganglbauer, Kafer von 

 Mitteleuropa, i, p. 118), to have the frontal keels divergent before and behind, a 

 character upon which too much stress has perhaps been placed. N. pusilius 

 Waterh., it may be observed, was described from a single specimen from an unknown 

 locality lent to Mr. Waterhouse by Mr. Bentley, and the type is probably lost ; 

 it is doubtless conspecific with N. bigeminus, Thorns. The only representative of 

 the latter I possess is one from the Haute- Marne, France, given me by Captain 

 Deville as N. pusilius. Amongst my British N. aquaticus there are none with the 

 elytra so distinctly striated to the apex as in this French insect, nor have any of 

 them a definite double impressed pore near the tip ; Mr. Joy, however, states 

 (loc. cit) that he has specimens of it from Bradfield and Southport. N. aquaticus, 

 to -judge from the continental examples before me, is an extremely variable species. 

 Capt. Deville (L'Abeille, xxx, p. 182) mentions a small alpine form of it (length 

 about 4 mm.) from various localities in France, and this is doubtless similar to the 

 Scottish insect noted by myself, for which the name strigifrons can be provisionally 

 used. To the localities given for N. hypocrita, Spaeth (= germinyi, Fauv.) (anted 



