1906.] °' 



he placed rags soturated with ammonia above tlie material on llie sieve before tying 

 up the mouth. This had the same effect in driving all the living creatures down- 

 wards, to fall eventually into the tube below. The objection perhaps to all these 

 methods of obtaining insects wholesale, is that vast numbers of specimens of the 

 commonest species have to be looked over, or killed, before the rarer forms can be 

 selected. Prof. Howard's paper will, I am sure, interest Entomologists who wish 

 to collect minute beetles, &c., in rough weather, when a bag of siftings could be 

 much more profitably examined at home.-a. (\ Champion, Horsell, Woking : 

 March 16th, 1906. 



Tkt/amis carta, AIL, as a British i«.vec/. -This insect was brought forward as 

 British by Mr. J. E. le B. Tomlin in March, 1904 (Ent. Mo. Mag., xl, pp. 60 and 

 179) on specimens laken by himself and Dr. Harold Bailey at Colby, Isle of Man. 

 These were identified by M. Bedel as curta. All. As the species has been since 

 alluded to as British by Mr. Chitty, Brof. Beare, and others, and has been included 

 in the latest British Catalogue, I propose to show that there was some error in 

 M. Bedel's identification, and that at present, at least, the insect has no claim to a 

 place in the British list. Mr. Tomlin well describes the Colby insect as having the 

 appearance of a miniature T. melanocephala. Mr. Champion (Enl. Mo. Mag^, xli, 

 p. 92) states that he has long had specimens in his collection as T. atriceps, Kuts., 

 an insect regarded by M. Bedel (Faune Seine, v. 311) as synonymous with T. me- 

 lanocephala, De G-. It is evident that the Colby Thyamis will not answer to 

 Allard's description of T. curta, All. (Mon. des Alticides, p. 410), in which, in 

 reference to the elytra, he says : " EUes sont d'ordinaire testacees comme le pro- 

 notum, mais quelquefois la suture est etroitement ferrugineuse ainsi qu'une partie 

 des bords lateraux." Bedel (Faune Seine, v, 190) has as follows : " Elytres entiere- 

 ment pales ou testaces." With a view to making the matter more certain, I sent 

 two of the Colby specimens to M. Bedel for re-examination, and he has returned 

 them as " certainly not curta;' and was good enough to let me see authentic 

 examples of the latter, with which the Colby insect evidently had nothing in 

 common. I may add that Mr. Tomlin is quite satisfied that T. curta was intro- 

 duced in error.-E. A. Newbeet, 12, Churchill Koad, Dartmouth Park, N.W. : 

 February Uh, 1906. 



Coleoptera in the Neiobury District.- n^e Coleoptera of this district have been 

 very little worked, I believe, so the following notes may be of interest. 



I have collected here for over two years, but as my time is very limited a great 

 many species are probably overlooked. In the Oeodephaga, for instance, I have 

 done practically nothing ; the only three species at all worthy of mention are 

 Bradycellus placidus, coxnmon in veeA-heA^,Badister sodalis, and Lehia chloroce- 

 phaJa, the latter species having turned up singly on five occasions. 



Water beetles I have not worked much, and have taken little of note. Agahus 

 femoralis was common in a pond at Coldash on April 17lh, 1904, together with 

 Bidessus geminus, Relochares punctatus, and Hydrochus angustatus, while Hydro- 

 porus marginatus occurred under a brick in a swiftly running stream near Kintbury 

 with plenty of Elmis xneus and Limnius tuberculatus. 



