NEW BRITISH SPECIES, NOMENCLATURE, ETC. 127 



— a naked maggot within the dry shell — lived in that state 

 without food till the spring, when it changed to a pupa, and 

 afterwards emerged as Pim^ila instigator — although I twice 

 opened its case to see the contents, and afterwards repaired 

 it with a piece of papfer. The contents of Mr. Scott's box 

 are particularly interesting, and not yet exhausted, though 

 the condition of the small specimens is bad. Among them 

 are two specimens of Pezomachus^ $ $ , bred together, and 

 T believe undescribed. They are both testaceous, with some 

 darker bands, and apterous. The great difficulty of obtain- 

 ing real pairs of these insects renders me anxious to describe 

 the above, if by any possibility they can be cleaned. Accord- 

 ing to Forster, the males are invariably apterous like the 

 females. But his opinion does not agree with facts observed 

 by Ratzeburg, Smith, and others. Apterous males are rare, 

 but I have taken altogether some dozen to hundreds of 

 females. Of one species {Hemimachus avidus, Cat. p. 47) 

 I took several males on the shores of a reedy pond in 

 Leicestershire, and one of these was winged. Of course I 

 set this down as a distinct species at the time, but am now 

 confirmed in the opposite opinion. And in a wood near 

 ]Milford Haven, frequented by me, a small pale Pezomachus 

 occurred in numbers, together with a winged form which I 

 was led to regard as its male, though certainly without any 

 positive proof. Some of these males were fully winged ; iu 

 others the wings were more or less shortened, but never 

 entirely wanting. They correspond to the females in all the 

 usual particulars. They are too small for any described 

 Hemiteles. The apterous female is also undescribed. It 

 may be that the males of Pezomachus are much commoner 

 than is supposed, that they are only occasionally apterous, 

 and, when so, are of paler colours, which, in conjunction with 

 a weaker thoracic structure, prevents them from being iden- 



