44 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



been so the proposed name must have given way lo the prior 

 name of Hololeucus, proposed by M. Falderraan. In 1839 

 the insect appeared in the Appendix to Stephens' ' Manual 

 of British Coleoptera,' p. 433, as under: — 



" 1581 b. Plinus ho\o\eucus, Fa Iderman ? — Pale ochreous- 

 red ; densely clothed throughout with a pale ochreous, silky 

 down. (L. Ij — 2 lines.) Houses, London: whitethorn 

 hedge, Ryde, 6, but probably introduced." 



For further information I am indebted to my kind friend 

 Dr. Power, who now occupies the same position in 

 Coleopterology which Mr. Stephens occupied in 1839, when 

 his Manual was published. The insects in tea differ in some 

 respects from Dr. Power's ample series of Niptus hololeucus, 

 by which name the insect is now known, and under which it 

 appears in Mr. Crotch's ^Catalogue of British Coleoptera :'' 

 it is rather larger, and the punctures on the elytra are rather 

 more distinct, especially where the ochreous pubescence is 

 rubbed off, and the insect has become smooth and shining in 

 every part. Dr. Power cannot agree to consider it on this 

 account a second species of Niptus, although he thinks some 

 of our modern entomologists would incline to do so, and 

 there is no other Niptus in the European list except Niptus 

 Gonospermi, which is entirely different. If this tea beetle 

 prove really a different species it is still without a name, and 

 of course requires one. To this information Dr. Powder adds 

 the following : — " It so happens that I have had a little expe- 

 rience in this creature. Some years ago my friend Dr. Dupre 

 gave me some meal,w]iich had been sent him to analyse, and 

 it contained an immense number of the insect. The meal 

 was in a bottle with a glass stopper, which 1 never took out. 

 The insects died, but the next year the bottle contained 

 about fifty similar ones, produced from larvae identical with 

 those which you have sent me in the tea: each formed a sort 

 of cocoon, and in that underwent its transformations. The 

 third year there were about ten or a dozen, and the fourth 

 year none : they had disappeared altogether. 1 have no 

 doubt that if the bottle had been opened, so as to admit air, 

 the breed might have been continued." The beetle is now 

 very common in all our houses. It is said to have been 

 introduced into England from Persia via Turkey. It is as 

 omnivorous as Dermestes lardarius, feeding on any vegetable 

 substance, — as tea, meal, linen. 1 may state — 



