THE ENTOMOLOGIST 



Vol. XXVIL] FEBKUARY, 1894. [No. 369. 



ON AN UNUSUAL NUMBER OF MONSTROSITIES 

 OCCURRING IN EROS (PLATYCIS) MINUTUS, F. 



By John W. Shipp. 



Mr. Eye (Ent. Mo. Mag. xii. p. 107, 1875) gave a few in- 

 stances of examples of monstrosities occurring in a series of 

 Eros (Plati/cis) minutus, which were taken in Leigh Woods, near 

 Bristol. Having had the good fortune to find a colony of the 

 species in Splatts Wood, Gloucestershire (Ent. Mo. Mag. xxviii. 

 p. 288, 1892), I was this year (1893) delighted to find that the 

 colony still existed. I, however, found that a large proportion of 

 the species were deformed in many parts, notably in the antennae 

 and elytra. This colony exists in an old rotten ash-stump, 

 which is infested with Sinodendron cylindricum, and upon the 

 frass of which the insects probably exist. Mr. Eye also found his 

 insects upon an old stump, which he supposed was oak, although 

 it may in all probability have been ash. I found the imagines 

 embedded in the powdery frass at the entrance to the burrows, or 

 crawling about in a very sluggish manner around the foot of the 

 stump ; but a careful and prolonged search failed to discover 

 any traces of either larvae or pupae. However, traces of the 

 perfect insect were to be found in the frass and burrows in the 

 stump, as an occasional elytron, or head and broken antenna, 

 testified ; but the strictest search failed to elicit more. Some of 

 the fragments were found at some distance in the interior. 



Mr. Rye took forty-seven specimens, of which only seven were 

 females. This is remarkable, for out of a total of thirty-three 

 specimens taken in 1892, the proportion of females were as 

 three to two, whilst in August, 1893, out of a total of thirty-five 

 specimens, twenty were females ; thus showing that the females 

 exceed the males. The insects themselves are of a very sluggish 

 disposition, rarely moving more than a few inches during the 

 heat of the day, and, although I watched them for hours, I did 



ENTOM. FEB., 1894. D 



