1881.] 7 



nidce in profusion, viz., Pliilonthns cyanipennis and Oxyporus angularis, 

 which are giants to the little animals which form the majority of their 

 family in Europe. 



In Tezo, and in the north of the main island, much snow falls in 

 the three months I refer to ; but the moisture arising from it, such as 

 would support insect-life, would chiefly operate when it melted in the 

 spring. I think, therefore, with very slight modifications for various 

 latitudes, my remarks on the climate will apply to the whole of this 

 empire, for in the north there is a drier autumn, which would counteract 

 any advantage derived from the snow.* 



Grand Hotel, Yokohama : 



January 16th, 1881. 



THE COLEOPTERA OF ASKHAM BOG, YOEK. 

 BY THE REV. W. W. FOWLER, M.A., E.L.S. 



Askham Bog has long been known to Entomologists as one of the 

 best localities in the kingdom for water beetles. Thanks to the 

 kindness of Archdeacon Hey, who may be said to have made the 

 locality, specimens of its chief productions are in most good collections, 

 but few people are aware of the number of species that exist within 

 quite a small area. The Bog is a depression of the boulder clay, filled 

 with peat, and is very likely a solitary relic of a bog that once extended 

 over a much wider area ; in fact, there are signs, at present, which 

 seem to show that even the portion that is left will, at no very distant 

 period, be dried up. 



The Bog may be divided into two portions, Askham Bog proper, 

 which is not very productive, and Chandler's Whin ; between these 

 two parts only one or two fields intervene, but the fauna seem almost 

 entirely different. Chandler's "Whin, in which almost all the good 

 things are found, consists of some dozen or so small ponds edged with 

 deep moss, and separated from one another by most treacherous grassy 

 ground, or, where there is a rise, by small slopes covered with gorse 

 and trees ; the divisions are only a few yards wide in many cases, and 

 yet the species of insects, and the relative numbers of the species, are 

 singularly different in the different ponds ; this is probably due to the 

 influence of springs, character and thickness of the bottom soil, and 

 the different growth of plants consequent thereupon, and though 

 worth mentioning, is not by any means a strange fact, when we re- 



* P.S., Jan. 27th. The humidity registered by the wet and dry bulb thermometer on the 25th 

 January, was 7 a.m., 87 %, and 7 p.m., 34 %, but of course this is exceptional even here. 



