1882. j 213 



common in this county, but I have never yet seen the other species here. — H. 

 Williams, Croxton, Norfolk : January, 1882. 



[We learn from Professor Frey's remarks, Stettin, ent. Zeitung, 1871, p. 125, 

 that he had also bred both these plumes from Staehys sylvatica, but those he referred 

 to cosmodactyla differed somewhat from the ordinary form of that species, such as 

 he had been in the habit of breeding from the seeds of columbine (Aquilegia vul- 

 garis). However, he could only look upon these specimens as being a variety of 

 cosmodactyla, having once bred one similar specimen from columbine, amongst a 

 hundred of the ordinai'y insect. 



As the fifteen bred from Staehys sylvatica were all precisely similar, he sug- 

 gested that they might bear the name of cosmodactyla, var. stachydalis. The 

 punctidactyla of the Manual is the cosmodactyla of Frey and Staudinger. — H. T. S.] 



Oxytelusfulvipes in Warwickshire. — Whilst searching to-day for Ocyusa picina 

 and Gymnusa variegata (both of which species I obtained) in some boggy ground at 

 Sutton Park, near here, I found several specimens of Oxytelus fulvipes, a species 

 hitherto found only (in this country), I believe, in Needwood Forest. — W. Gr. Blatch, 

 214, Green Lane, Smallheath, near Birmingham : January l&th, 1882. 



Influence of size of elytra on flight in beetles. — In last November's Magazine, 

 p. 138, are some notes of mine on the influence of air-currents on Coleoptera, and 

 into these notes the Editors have introduced the following paragraph : — " It would, 

 however, be difficult to base any general theory upon these facts, as so many 

 mountain species have very abbreviated elytra and no wings at all, and such wet- 

 loving sluggish creatures as Acrognaiha have short elytra utterly disproportionate 

 to the length of their body." 



Now I should class Acrognaiha with the B/edii and Trogophlmi mentioned in 

 my note, for it has ample wings and on still evenings doubtless flies. But had it 

 ample elytra the least breeze or air-current would waft it away from the subaquatic 

 areas essential for it. I do not know to what genera the " many mountain species " 

 with abbreviated elytra and no wings belong. Yet I can imagine species in which 

 the shortened wing case, owing to a perpetually disturbed atmosphere, would be in- 

 sufficient to enable them to retain their location, and in this case they might either 

 die out or become apterous. It is possible even that a further modification would 

 occur, viz. : the elytra might become soldered together as an insect ceases to raise 

 them. Mr. Wollaston many years since referred the apterous forms of Coleoptera, 

 so abundant in Maderia, to the strong breezes continually passing over that group of 

 Islands, and what I believe is that the shortened wing cases of Coleoptera is a protec- 

 tion in a less disturbed atmosphere, namely, in the ordinary air-currents of temperate 

 latitudes. For the past two weeks I have been noticing the flight of Coleoptera 

 here, and comparing the movements of insects with those of Japan. In beating for 

 specimens you knock numbers into the umbrella, but the difficulty is to secure them. 

 Ordinary beetles, such as Hispa, Languria, and Ojiilus which are sluggish species in 

 Japan, here often escape by flight before you can put a finger on them, and this 

 activity I believe can be referred to the calm and generally currentless atmosphere 

 of the tropics, which enables species with ample elytra to acquire a rapid and 



