68 [August, 



A sijecies of Harpalus new to Britain. — During a short visit to Braemar and the 

 neighbourhood, in the early part of this summer, I had the pleasure of taking 

 Harpalus qua.dripnnctatus, Dej., a species not hitherto, I believe, recorded as oc- 

 curring in Great Britain. It is closely alhed to H. latus, L., but is rather longer, 

 and of more parallel form. Its thorax is shorter proportionally, without the testa- 

 ceous edge, and it has considerably deeper foveas at its base, which is more obsoletely 

 punctured. On the apical half of the third interstice of each elytron are two or 

 three punctures. 



H. 4!-pt<nctatus appears to be widely distribiited on the continent, occuiTing in 

 France, Switzerland, Grermauy, Sweden, and Lapland. I obtained the insect by 

 tm-niug over stones near the edge of a small loch high up on a mountain, at some 

 distance from Braemar.— Thos. Blackbuex, Greenhithe, Kent : July 17tk, 1873. 



[Thomson, Stand. Col., i, p. 280, persists in adopting Gyllenhal's name of serie- 

 ptinctatus for tliis insect, in spite of that author having, as Schaum points out in Ins. 

 Deutschl., i, p. 596, confused it with the prior seriepunctatus of Sturm {=^impiger, 

 Dufts.). But Schaum is clearly wrong in endeavouring to reconcile Gyllenhal's 

 description with the latter insect ; the acute angles of the thorax of impiger are alone 

 enough to prove this. As regards mere elytral punctuation, one of Mr. Blackburn's 

 specimens kindly given to me, has two punctures on the third riglit interstice, and 

 four on the left.— E. C. E.] 



Note on habits of $ Driliis. — This morning, on turning over a lump of chalk 

 in the " Warren," and thereby exposing a moist spot and letting in the sun and air, 

 I caught a glimpse of about four segments of a receding tail in the orifice of a snail- 

 shell, and immediately thought — ■" That's ? Drilus." And such pi'oved to be the case. 

 The shell was besmeared with a ghitinous substance similar in colour to, but rather 

 more fluid than, liquid-glue. This fluid was of sufiicient quantity to cover the tips 

 of my two fingers and thumb as I grasped the shell ; but it speedily dried, and in a 

 few minutes the shell was to all appearance clean, sun-dried (but not blanched), and 

 uninhabited. Even by placing the sliell in the forefinger and thumb between the eye 

 and the sun, no trace of any foreign substance was visible — the body of the insect, 

 though bulky, being quite as transparent as the material shell. Had I not seen the 

 four segments, Drilus would have escaped. Notices of the occurrence of the female 

 of this Malacoderm have been registered in late years, but perhaps this note may not 

 be superfluous in drawing attention to the habits of the species, since so little has been 

 recorded (in England at least*) concerning its larvte and earlier stages. To find the 

 5 imago, I think empty snail-shells from the locality where the insect is known to 

 occur, should be pierced at the spiral end ; as, after I reached home it took me several 

 minutes to judiciously break the shell suiEciently to dislodge the specimen ; and, after 

 dislodging it, it endeavoured several times to regain its tenement — cimwling four or 

 five inches over a spi'cad newspaper. The example I found was quite a stray one, 

 far in the " Warren," where the male by sweeping is very rare — or rather used to be 

 formerly — for I have not looked for it this season. I cannot explain the origin of the 

 brown sticky fluid ; yet, should it be an element ejected by the female when disturbed, 

 or in any way connected with its existence, it may be a guide to future captures. 



* See Bellevoye, Ann. Soc. Ent. Fr. (4) x, Bull., p. xxxv, Desmarest, ibid. p. sxxvi, De Mar.seul, 

 NouT. et fails, No. 14, and Abeille de Perrin, ibid. — E. C. R. 



