100 COLEOPTERA. 



24. Otiorhynchus blandus, Gyllenhal, in Schon. Gen. el 

 Spec. Cure, ii, p. 603 ; Stierliu, Rev. Eur. Otiorh.. 

 BerL Ent. Zeitschr. (Beih.\ 1861, p. 174; Thom- 

 son, Scand. Col., vii, (1865), p. 121 ; de Marseul, 

 "L'Abeille," x, Mon. Otiorh. (May, 1872), p. 261 ; 

 D. Sharp, Ent. Mo. Mag., ix, p. 290. 

 Icevigatus, GylL, Stephens (Illustr.), nee Fab. 

 monticola^ Stephens (Manual), Walton, Wat. Cat., nee 



Germar. 

 montieola^ Schonh., var. /3 ? Stierlin, /. e. 

 Dr. Sharp has pointed out that our Scotch insect, hitherto 

 known as monticola, is to be referred to the species first 

 above quoted, and notes that, although Stierlin apparently 

 did not recognize it, and merely follows Schonherr in giving 

 blaridus and monticola as distinct (as does de Marseul after 

 him), he evidently, from his localities for and remarks on 

 the latter, had both species before him. . As Dr. Sharp 

 himself speaks of the two insects as " species (or races) ;" 

 it would almost, at first sight, seem as if Stierlin's subse- 

 quent dubious reference, as above, might not be altogether 

 wrong. He says of montieola, " the elytra are at times 

 more strongly and at others more gently punctured in the 

 striae. Specimens from the north, especially from Iceland 

 and Sweden, of which I have a tolerable number before me, 

 are almost all very finely punctate-striate, so that the striae 

 become indistinct (var. /3)," and suggests that perhaps 

 O. blandus is founded on such examples ; noting that small 

 specimens from the Pyrenees also present this sculpture ; 

 but Dr. Sharp says that his Scotch specimens differ from 

 Pyrenean monticola just as Thomson states the two species 

 should differ. The original differential characters are that 

 blandus is somewhat the larger of the two, with scarcely 

 perceptible elytral stinse, a rugose-punctured rostrum, and 



