140 THE entomologist's record. 



antenna six-jointed and the other seven-jointed (Bye many years ago 

 came to the same conclusion) ; this latter form he proposes to call ab. 

 inaequalis. Whatever opinion one may hold in regard to Mr. Edwards' 

 views on specific and varietal distinctions, one can but congratulate 

 him v/armly on two admirable papers. 



Dr. Joy contributed to the F^nt. Mo. Ma;/, two important notes — 

 (1) " A Note on Dr. Sharp's New Species of Gabrius " [loc. cit., p. 80)|; 

 and (2) " A Revision of the British Species of Liodefi, Latreille 

 [Anisotoma, Brit. Cat.)," {loc. cit., p. 166). In the first of these two 

 notes, Dr. Joy gives a table for separating these eight species without 

 reference to the male genitalia, and in addition he gives a short des- 

 cription of each species, and notes as to the localities in which these 

 species occur. I should like to ask Dr. Sharp and Dr. Joy how it has 

 been determined which of these species is the original trossulns, Nordm. 

 It is curious that Dr. Joy says that the species he calls trossuliis is by 

 no means common, and is very local, while on the other hand the 

 insect which is called iw/ritulus, Grav., and which we have hitherto 

 considered to be very rare, is on the contrary the commonest of the 

 group, at any rate in England. It is surely impossible to decide from 

 the original description of trossulus, which was drawn up from a 

 mixture of several of these species, which insect should be called 

 trosmlus. Under these circumstances it would surely have been better 

 to have given the name trossulus to the more common form. There is 

 one point in Dr. Joy's table, which seems a most untrustworthy 

 character, namely, the extrusion of the male organ. Surely this is 

 merely an accidental result, due to shock at the instant of death, and 

 is not a state of things which can exist in life as the normal condition. 



In the second paper Dr. Joy says that he has been specially inte- 

 rested for some years in the genus generally called in this country 

 Anisotowa, and that he has felt the need of a revision of the table 

 which has hitherto been used for separating the species. Unfortu- 

 nately Dr. Joy has not been a'ole to come to an agreement with Dr. 

 Fleischer, the recognised authority for this genus, in regard to several 

 doubtful specimens, and some of the points must, therefore, be considered 

 to be still unsettled. Dr. Joy sent four specimens to Dr. Fleischer, which 

 the latter returned as brunnea, Sturm.; Dr. Joy, however, is of opinion 

 that only two of thesefour specimens are true brunnea, and that the other 

 two are ahjirica. Rye, and that the specimen taken by Mr. Donisthorpe 

 at Oxford, and named algirica by Dr. Fleischer, is only a small diibia. 

 Mr. Donisthorpe criticised this conclusion of Dr. Joy {loc. cit., p. 256), 

 and pointed out that Dr. Joy's brunnea possessed characters which 

 were not consonant with the original description of Sturm. Dr. Joy, 

 in reply to this note, maintains his original contention {loc. cit., p. 276). 

 In this article Dr. Joy describes an entirely new species stenocorypke 

 (loc. cit., p. 167), on the strength of two specimens taken by Mr. W. 

 E. Sharp near Forres. He deletes obesa , Schm., and siniilata. Rye; he 

 considers the former is merely a variety of the very variable dubia, 

 Kug., and that the latter is only a variety of badia, Stm. It may be 

 mentioned that in an earlier note [loc. cit., p. 10) Dr. Joy described a 

 new species of Anisotoma under the name davidiana, which he stated 

 at the time was closely allied to dubia, and that he had specimens of it 

 from Southport and Deal. In the article at present under consideration, 

 however, he said that he had modified his views, and considered this in- 



