i90fi]. 229 



Calosoma sycophanta in the New Forest. — It may interest some of jour readers 

 to hear that I was shown a living specimen of Calosoma sycophanta on June 23rd 

 last. It had been captured that morning while running over a lawn in a garden at 

 Lyndhurst. It was kept alive about a week, and was supplied with larvae of the 

 " asparagus beetle " (Crioceri.v a.v/?ara^i), which I am told it appeared to relish. 

 Last autumn the owner of the garden had some shrubs from the neighbourhood of 

 Orleans ; can the beetle have been imported with them ? This specimen was very 

 fresh and brilliantly coloured, and looked as though it had not long been hatched. 

 I do not know its sex. Seeing the note in this Magazine for July {ante p. 159) 

 recording a specimen taken in the New Forest, I thought it might be worth while 

 to note the fact that it was not the only one observed in this neighbourhood. — 

 Ethel F. Chawnee, Forest Bank, Lyndhurst, Hants. : September 2nd, 1906. 



Apion limonii, Kirby, in its original locality. — I am not aware if this species 

 has ever been sought in the locality where the Rev. William Kirby first found it " in 

 the sea marshes at Holme-juxta-mare, in Norfolk, upon the leaves of Statice lima- 

 nium, when the plant was first beginning to blossom. . . It is perfectly distinct 

 from every other, and by far the most beautiful and splendid species of the genus 

 I have yet seen" (Kirby, Mon. Apion, Linn. Trans., vol. ix, p. 79). This was 

 written over a hundred years ago, and the insect discovered most opportunely, while 

 the Monograph was being published. 



On August 19th last I visited Holme to find if the species had " braved a hun- 

 dred years the battle of the breeze," and found an extensive salt marsh, about half 

 a mile long by 200 yards broad, covered with the flowers of the sea lavender. 

 Sweeping proved of no use whatever over the bulk of this, and the cause was 

 presently manifest when the tide rolled in and completely covered the roots of the 

 plants. Only at the landward end, where the plants were much more scattered and 

 mixed with other salt marsh herbage and Juncus, were any of the Apion found. 

 Here, however, I swept a few in the morning ; and in the evening they were not un- 

 commonly found sitting and walking upon the mud at the roots of IStatice and the 

 adjacent herbage. Sandhoppers' holes in the mud were utilized to sit in, with the 

 snouts protruding. Upon being alarmed it feigns death for about three seconds 

 only, then walks with great activity ; it also has the annoying habit of suddenly 

 falling, or casting itself, from the plant when frightened. It is curiously inconspi- 

 cuous, and greatly resembles a flower of Statice when rolled up in the net. Statice 

 limoiiium first blossoms early in July ; but many of the Apions I took were still 

 immature, and of a paler colour than the typical form. It is a glorious little 

 creature, and Kirby well said of it " Finis coronat opus." — Claude Moeley, Monks' 

 Soham House, Suffolk : September, 1906. 



Epursea parvula, Er., and its pabulum. — Not long ago I found a series of 

 Epuraea parvula in a very small fungus growing on a fallen oak trunk ; the fungus 

 unfortunately being in such a state as to be beyond recognition. For three evenings 

 I searched for more of the Epuraea (thinking it to be something other than parvula) 

 and just upon dusk of the third evening discovered a heap of dead branches lying 

 in the undergrowth not far from the original oak trunk. A small, hard and knob- 

 like fungus of a most unpromising nature grew here in some abundance, and 



